In Pursuit of Plants
Podcast & Blog
The IPOP podcast project
Plants outnumber humans by 7,500 times and account for 82% of the earth's biomass (compared to humans at 0.01%).* Plants are the cornerstone of life and deserve more attention than they tend to get. Our personal research focus is on exploring their use as medicines in modern pharmacy, with a number of drugs being based – or produced directly – from plants. With climate change and the loss of biodiversity, understanding the relationship between medicine and plants – as well as the use of plants more generally – is becoming increasingly important.
Our monthly podcast interviews medicinal plant researchers, exploring a range of disciplines in the humanities and sciences such as anthropology, historical studies, phylogenetics and biochemistry.
Whatever ways people have harnessed plants, we like to investigate....
The podcast has a focus on all things medico-botanical, but we have been known to take a trip into the wild side and look at food, materials and technology - as long as it has a botanical theme.
Please contact us if you have a story you'd like to share.
Funded with thanks by Humanities and Arts Research Institute (HARI),
Royal Holloway, University of London.
Ash Walker for IPOP Music
Lisa Swallow for IPOP Logo artwork
About Us
Kim Walker
PhD Candidate
Royal Holloway, UOL &
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
*Bar-On, Y., Phillips, R., & Milo, R., (2018). The biomass distribution on earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 115 (25) 6506-6511.