Podcast appearances and mentions of jane langdale

3 billion people depend on rice for survival & owing to predicted population increases, land that provided enough rice to feed 27 people in 2010 will need to support 43 by 2050. In this week's podcast episode we ask: how do you grow rice faster? Currently over three billion people depend on rice for survival, and, owing to predicted population increases and a general trend towards urbanisation, land that provided enough rice to feed 27 people in 2010 will need to support 43 by 2050. In the hopes of meeting the food needs of billions of people around the world, scientists have taken a major step towards creating a 'supercharged' strain of rice! In this week’s Big Questions podcast we visited Jane Langdale, Professor of Plant Development at the University of Oxford, and is the current coordinator of the C4 Rice Project, to ask: How do you grow rice faster?

Early land plants didn't have leaves. At a certain point, they evolved. In fact, the anatomy found in C4 leaves evolved 60 times, and leaves themselves evolved at least twice but probably no more than 6 times, essentially independently from one another. Now, this is a complex genetic change we're talking about. How did this happen? That's what Jane Langdale is trying to figure out. The whole of Jane Langdale's research is about shoot development in plants. When a shoot develops, it can either turn into more stems, or into a leaf. The leaves then, more or less efficiently, convert sunlight into usable energy. The interesting thing is this: a small minority of plants have a specialized anatomy that allows them to convert sunlight more efficiently. The goal is to engineer that anatomy into crops like rice or wheat. “And if we could do that, then it's predicted that we could increase yield by about 50%.” Hit play to hear more about Jane Langdale's research. Subscribe, review, and if you can, consider donating some BitCoin. Every little bit helps.

Three billion people—nearly half of us--depend on rice for survival. What if you could adjust rice genetically so 1) it has a 50% greater yield, 2) using half the water, 3) needing far less fertilizer, 4) along with higher resilience to climate change? It would transform world agriculture. All you need to do is switch rice from inefficient C3 photosynthesis to the kind of C4 photosynthesis employed by corn, sugarcane, and sorghum. That switch has been made in plants 60 independent times by evolution, so we have models for how to do it. In 02008 the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set in motion a consortium of 12 labs worldwide working on developing C4 rice. One of the major leaders of the work is Professor Jane Langdale at Oxford University’s Department of Plant Sciences. Former Long Now speaker Charles C. Mann (who is writing about C4 rice) recommended her highly. If C4 rice proves successful, it could lead to similar radical improvement for other inefficient crops such as wheat. Decades of focussed research could produce centuries in which ever less land provides ever more food, leaving ever more of the planet to nature.

The Nobel prize for Chemistry was awarded to German scientist Richard Willstatter in 1915 for his analysis of the green plant pigment chlorophyll. It marked a significant moment in the long history of piecing together the many elements that contribute to photosynthesis - the process by which plants draw in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and together with light and water can generate their own glucose and release oxygen back into the air. The limits of this process were now clear Kathy Willis hears from historian Jim Endersby about defining moments in photosynthesis' long history and from Kew's Head of Conservation Biotechnology about how artificially elevating levels of carbon dioxide in the air,a technique long developed by horticulturists to produce bigger fruit and vegetable crops, is now having dramatic effects on successful reintroduction of cultivated endangered plants back into the wild. And as scientists understand the different methods that plants use to photosynthesise, Kathy Willis hears from Oxford plant scientist Jane Langdale who's part of a network of international scientists who are attempting to mend a fundamental flaw in the process of photosynthesis which could improve future rice yields by 50% Producer Adrian Washbourne.

With Professor Liam Dolan and Professor Jane Langdale, Co-Directors, Plants for the 21st Century Institute. As we struggle to feed the world's growing population is it ethically wrong not to use all the tools at our disposal to help increase food production? Liam Dolan and Jane Langdale explore the possibilities and benefits that could be derived from using scientific advancement to enhance agricultural production. Professor Julian Savulescu, Director of the Institute for Science and Ethics, questions the ethical issues involved.

With Professor Liam Dolan and Professor Jane Langdale, Co-Directors, Plants for the 21st Century Institute. As we struggle to feed the world's growing population is it ethically wrong not to use all the tools at our disposal to help increase food production? Liam Dolan and Jane Langdale explore the possibilities and benefits that could be derived from using scientific advancement to enhance agricultural production. Professor Julian Savulescu, Director of the Institute for Science and Ethics, questions the ethical issues involved.