Prof. Tim Lang calls for urgent action to tackle the UK's dependence on imported food and the supermarket 'just-in-time' distribution system. Increasing risks from climate, inflation, and international conflict require national and local action on stockpiling, he says, and to rapidly expand our food production at all levels, with communities playing a vital part.
After 35 years and more of ro-ro ferry operation, Orkney’s linkspans are ageing, with the need to detect early signs of corrosion and fatigue. At present the only way to do this is through periodic visual inspections, but now a new project led by Heriot-Watt University is trying out quantum sensors and AI analysis. Prof. Aseem Kinra reports on how partners from the public and private sectors are coming together to help maintain the smooth operation of a key part of Orkney’s maritime transport.
Not long ago Orkney could feed itself: today weather delays mean gaps on supermarket shelves. But, says Dr Henry Creissen, the director of UHI's Agronomy and Agriculture Institute, the range of crops that can be grown is considerable, and particularly when protection is provided, for instance by a polycrub. He describes the results that are coming from vertical farming trials. Rebecca Ford joins him to give news of community food-growing initiatives in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Meet friends old or new and enjoy the best of Orkney cheese, meat, fish and baking. Come in good time for the best choice of food and for the Toast. The One O’Clock Toast today is to Jackie Brown, who made the Bankhouse in Stromness part of the heart of the community. It is given by his daughter Ingirid Morrison.
Researchers are working to develop crops with greater climate resilience and also improved nutrition. That means, says Prof. Wendy Russell of the University of Aberdeen’s Rowett Institute, improving existing crops such as barley and brassica species, introducing new alternatives like hemp and buckwheat, and also looking at ways to harvest wild plants like wild garlic and sorrel. In such ways, she says, we can improve diet, utilise less favourable land, and expand overall local food production.
How can Deaf people of all ages be fully involved in all of the climate discussion? A team of Deaf scientists and researchers focused around the University of Edinburgh has put together a climate workshop in British Sign Language (BSL). You will learn many new BSL signs and share knowledge about science and language. The workshop will be presented in BSL with spoken English interpretation.
Could ammonia be the fuel of the future? Yes, says Dr Angela Kruth of Germany’s start-up CAMPFIRE AG, who leads an international alliance working on its development. Ammonia is formed of nitrogen and hydrogen. The hydrogen can come from renewable energy sources – and thereby provides a way to store energy from wind or solar. It’s simpler to handle and transport than hydrogen, and it’s also cost-effective. In fact, she says, “Ammonia is a game-changer for the energy future.”
A life-changing mountain accident left Karen Darke paralysed from the chest down. But as an explorer at heart, she has navigated the challenge of paralysis in extreme ways, including a Paralympic gold in hand-cycling in Rio in 2016. She has cycled across seven continents, become a triple Guinness World Record holder for land speed by arm power, climbed El Capitan with her arms, and skied in Antarctica to create the Pole of Possibility. She shares stories of innovation, collaboration and mindset to show thinking differently can make surprising things possible.
A second opportunity to enjoy a celebration of Orkney’s ancient grain in words, music and images. The words, from the dialect writers of Orkney Voices, tell of the fresh wind that blows the bere, and the rain helping its growth and building the water flow for the mill wheel, and the work in fields and mill and kitchen. The specially composed music brings together tunes reflecting the various processes and complementing backdrop images that focus on the cycle of ploughing, sowing, harvest, milling.
The story of what the outdoors can do for our mental health. “It’s part personal story, part science,” says Ross Cunningham, “and rooted in my own journey of climbing all 282 Munros, the highest mountains in Scotland. Hillwalking found me when I was in the grip of severe depression and anxiety – it saved my life, and it changed it. This is the story of discovering a Scotland I never knew existed, told through photographs, film, and my own words.”
There’s vertical farming and there’s hydroponic tower farming, and researchers at The James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen are collaborating with UHI Orkney’s Agronomy & Agriculture Institute to find the answer to two key questions – Will they work in practice in Orkney’s diverse communities? And would they be financially viable? The team are providing information on these innovative new systems and the changes they may trigger, and an opportunity to see UHI Orkney’s hydroponic Tower Farms in their Polycrub setting, and they would like to gather your feedback.
On 30 August NASA will launch its newest space telescope. Its name honours Dr Nancy Grace Roman who became the first chief of astronomy at NASA and the ‘Mother of the Hubble Space Telescope’.” Dr Karina Cooper, who works in the institution housing Dr Roman’s archive, draws on photos, stories and documents to build a picture of how the barriers facing women in early 20th-century astronomy were brilliantly overcome.
Andy Munro with music for the journey north and back again, and places in between. He is accompanied along the way by several guests, with songs including several linked to the great Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, born in Edinburgh in 1831.