ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Available for over a year

What makes flowers so beautiful? Why are some leaves curly, others spiky, and others flat? Bridget Kendall brings together a panel of three experts who have some answers to nature's mysteries. Enrico Coen is a professor of plant genetics who has been running computer simulations of how plant cells turn from bud to bloom. He's found some simple rules of nature and, joining forces with Rob Kesseler, Professor of Ceramic Art & Design at Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design, and PhD student Tilly Eldridge, used them to create some original "organic" objects of his own at his lab at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Andrew Zuckerman is a photographer from New York who's got up close and personal with some of the world's most wonderful flowers in his quest to capture the essence of a flower's shape in a single photograph, shot against a plain, white background. And ecology professor Lars Chittka helps us understand nature through the eyes of a bee, that much-coveted pollinator, which is attracted to a flower by symmetry, colour and scent. An expert in the relationships between plants and other creatures, Professor Chittka founded the Research Centre for Psychology at Queen Mary, University of London. Photo by Andrew Zuckerman (Jimson Weed, Thorn Apple