Getting more from fertiliser, viral DNA's vital role and help from hookworms!
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How do hookworms contribute to autoimmune disease treatments?
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Time for another science show, and this time with energetic nylons. I'm Belinda Smith. And as we explore the unexpected, for the first time in the science show, a young person who once hated science.
I like to play it out and cover the truth, but I have to say, I absolutely hated it. Even for reference, if I quote from my bright pink Hello Kitty diary, I wrote, I hate science. It's so boring. Even a snappy message from my eight-year-old self detailed very clearly and very fervent hatred of science, which poses a question. How does a child who quite frankly was told off continuously for asking why and how express such hatred for science? And not only that, but so early on in their schooling career.
Thank you.
Chloe Kwan, now 15. But why then, as she asked, so young, did she have that loathing of science lessons? That's later. First, I want to ask Belle a question about these last two astounding weeks. On the one hand, we're told to endure the prospect of wiping out civilization, along with thousands of lives who happen to be in the way. But by contrast, there was Artemis, offering discovery and joy. Yes, one was politics, the other was science. Bell, my late friend Tim Radford, one of the truly great science journalists of our times, said that despite his reservations, when Apollo first took off, all that time ago, to land on the moon, it was one of the most exciting experiences imaginable. A civilising experience, joy...
Did you feel the same? I did. I remember coming into work on the morning of the lunar flyby and looking up at the moon, which was still high in the sky, and thinking, gosh, there are people up there. It's just an amazing thought. But the Artemis II mission wasn't the only thing in the news. Also dominating headlines is the Strait of Hormuz blockade. This has created shortages, not just of oil, but also nitrogen fertilisers. And this is a big deal. we need fertilisers to get high yields out of pretty much every crop. So scientists have been looking for ways to get more bang for their fertiliser buck, not only in times of scarcity like these, but also as the world's population continues to grow. Noah Abrahams at the University of Melbourne has looked into this.
When you put nitrogen fertiliser in soil, how much of it is actually used by the plants?
So there's about 50% of the applied nitrogen that reaches our plant. Feels wasteful to me. Yeah, it feels wasteful to me as well. So the issue is not so much the plants, but rather the rate at which they are bombarded with these nutrients. So it's sort of like if you put a cake in front of someone and ask them to eat the whole cake in a minute.
Nitrogen is found in the air we breathe that makes up the largest components of the atmosphere, but plants get it from the soil, not the air, right?
They actually do also get it from the air. One way is from lightning, actually. Lightning creates forms of nitrogen that plants can uptake directly through their leaves. But the main way that nitrogen is sourced is through the soil. One of the main ways they get it is from urea, and it needs to be converted into a form that the plant can uptake, which the first one of those is ammonium. And so to convert urea to ammonium, there's an enzyme in the soil called urease and it functions to very quickly, catalytically convert urea into ammonium.
Can we just talk a little bit about what happens to the ammonium that is not used by the plants? Where does that end up and does that have any effect on the environment?
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How do hookworms contribute to autoimmune disease treatments?
0:00–14:02
2
What challenges are associated with nitrogen fertilizer usage?
14:02–34:49
3
How can slow-release fertilizers improve agricultural efficiency?
34:49–52:20
4
What role do enzyme inhibitors play in fertilizer effectiveness?
52:20–54:35
Speakers
9 identifiedMore from The Science Show
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