UNTANGLING SCIENCE EPISODE 5: PHOTOSYNTHESIS*****

 

By Megan

Link: https://www.untanglingscience.com/episode-5-photosynthesis (also available on Spotify, Listen Notes etc)

Link to transcript: https://www.untanglingscience.com/blog/episode-5-photosynthesis

Available until: Unknown

Untangling Science is a brilliant podcast by Darragh Ennis who is most famous for being a Chaser on the Chase but he’s also a scientist. He really wants to share science with other people and show them how interesting and important it is and he does a really good job of this.

Even if you don’t usually like science (though I do) the podcasts are really interesting. They have lots of scientific facts but instead of making science seem like something which is separate and a bit alien from the rest of life, the podcast relates it to real life and shows us how science is a part of all our lives.

This episode is about photosynthesis. It is about plants but we get to hear all about how photosynthesis affects humans and that it’s actually really important to us that plants are able to breathe too.

It also answers lots of interesting questions which are a very important part of photosynthesis but which you might not find out about at school because teachers tend to tell you as little as possible and they leave out all the extra interesting facts that would actually make the whole subject more memorable. The episode also doesn’t stick to the obvious things like land plants and also talks about sea plants which are actually quite important but they are just the sort of things that seem to get missed out of science lessons. If you have listened to the previous episodes (which are really good) you will have learned about things which will help you with this episode, like electrons, chemical elements and the Sun.

You also get to hear about things you would not usually expect to be mentioned in any kind of science lesson. The one that surprised me most was nail varnish. It’s actually not the first time I’ve heard about a connection between nail varnish and science because my sister Imogen is always painting her nails in science lessons because she’s so bored (I told her to listen to this podcast but she never does what I say). But there is another way nail varnish is used in science lessons and if you listen to this episode you will find out what it is. Other surprising things that get a mention are solar panels and mint.

Another thing I really love is irregular plurals and even though that is a language thing and not a science thing, there is an irregular plural used here, stomata is the plural of stoma (you’ll find out what it means if you watch the episode). I knew the word already from first aid (the episode says is a Latin word, I actually thought it was Greek and it is but it came to the English language via Modern Latin so it’s not wrong) but I didn’t know the English plural. I love unusual plurals and I’ll be able to use this one when I’m talking to people because I’ll be able to tell them about photosynthesis!

There are some equations in this episode but not in a scary way because we don’t actually have to do all the work. I quite like equations and I hope I’ll learn to do them soon but it’s good that we can enjoy the episode without doing them if we don’t want to. There wasn’t much detail about how to solve equations but I think if there was an episode on equations, they would probably all make a lot more sense. I think maybe most of the people who explain equations (and also all parts of science) have forgotten how difficult it is when you first start out so they make it sounds more difficult than it needs to be and it’s just confusing and depressing. But this podcast tries really hard to do the opposite of that and explain it in a way that isn’t patronising but does take account of the fact a lot of people have gaps in their knowledge and won’t know certain things. This makes the subjects easier to understand and also a lot more fun.

The episode ends with some research related to photosynthesis. This happens in all the episodes and it is also really interesting and it’s another way of showing how science isn’t just a weird thing we study at school, it’s part of everyday life.