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Mathematical Models for Better Food Crops. · Mark and Pete

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  Mathematical models for better food crops.
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  Welcome to Mark and Pete. Do you want drought proof wheat?
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  Do you desire disease resistant rice?
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  Well maybe you can have it. Welcome to Mark and Pete, 2
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  blokes with half an opinion. Now here's our first thought.
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  The roots of a mathematical world.
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  What is the square root of a tomato?
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  Should it be calculated with every grain?
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  What factors make the power of a potato, and is it something
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  which you can train? What is the logarithm of a leak?
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  Is it something that's easy to explain?
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  If you know the calculus of a cucumber, the probability is
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  you've a vegetable for a brain. Yes.
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  Well, the fact is, is that there may be so mathematics, it's
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  something that some people find difficult.
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  Well, not so the researchers that are happening now where
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  mathematical models are being identified to be able to create
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  genetic material that can improve the food crops
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  resilience to climate change. Yes, this is the idea that
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  mathematical models can impact areas such as dry pest and
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  disease. Mr. Pete Well, I know that
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  you're reasonably good at mathematics and you've certainly
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  taught that in in lessons at school.
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  But let me ask you, this certainly is a great advancement
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  for science. Yes, Mr. Mark, The thing is we
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  well, let me just quote the Bible straight to the outset.
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  Genesis 2, verse 15. The Lord God took man and put
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  him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
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  There's a biblical mandate for us to farm well and to produce
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  good crops. There are ethical concerns that
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  it says it is said over, not over, using maths to look at the
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  genome. Genome being the all the genetic
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  material that defines what the particular Organism is like.
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  It's not that we use mathematics to define it, it's that we then
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  manipulate it, changing God's design.
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  People would say yes. However, I, the reason that I
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  don't have a problem with it, even as a Christian, is this we
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  do, we're doing, we've been doing that all the time for many
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  years without this sort of moral outrage by selective reading.
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  It's the same thing happening. It's just that it's happening in
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  a different way. And, and, and at a more extreme,
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  you could, you could do something more extreme, but what
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  you could do actually is something more precise and
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  targeted. And that's why it's a good thing
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  that math, if you've got a mathematical model of the genome
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  which is going to show add this particular alteration in in the
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  genome is going to produce more resistance to, for example,
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  flooding. Now, if you believe you've got a
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  good reason to believe there is going to be more flooding in the
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  future and certain climate change models do indicate this,
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  then you'll want that put in place, won't you?
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  So I think it's this is one of those, I suppose increasingly
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  few occasions here on Mark and Peter or any media when what
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  we've got is really a good news story.
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  Yes, and remarkably now. There was a recent workshop that
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  took place in Morocco. Leading mathematicians and crop
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  scientists all met together to discuss that applied mathematics
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  could be used to speed up the research through agricultural
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  gene banks for climate change resistance traits.
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  And this is something which is, as you say, is an incredibly
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  good news story as we know that there are many parts of the
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  world that are suffering from dry areas.
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  Maybe there's the persistent water scarcity and those dry out
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  areas could need as much science as possible to rectify this
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  problem. What I would say with this is
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  that to me, I, I just wonder why it's taken so long to get to the
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  stage. And I think it's really more
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  about the fact that more and more regions throughout the
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  world are suffering from droughts or whether they are
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  suffering from pests and diseases.
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  So I think that what we can also say is, and this is not to skew
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  the conversation, but artificial intelligence is making a big
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  difference here because it can accelerate the process of
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  mathematical models. And this is where I think the
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  combination between the practical, that's the those who
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  are basically farmers out in the land, working the land, who
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  bring their knowledge and mathematicians who could bring
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  their models and their learnings together, but also technology
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  can come together. And I think that this is a good
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  thing. And now I'm not saying, and of
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  course we're definitely not saying that we're going to see
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  the, the eradication of famine around the world or drought,
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  etcetera, but this is a good measure.
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  So, so Mr. Pete I I ask him, you know, when, when you think about
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  the world around us, this could be a good example of a positive
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  story for the 21st century where really many people are sort of
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  seeing conflict. On the plate, yeah, they, they
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  do see that. And people, it's almost as
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  though when you get a scientific advance, you know, it's what
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  what is the phrase looking the gift horse in the mouth?
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  You look at it. No, we don't want that.
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  There's always seem to come up with the reasons to be very
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  creative in coming coming up with the reasons why it's not
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  good news. Now there are there have been
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  problems with manipulating genetically that crops and you
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  can come become a cropper, as you might say, if you if you do
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  that, because you can end up with with crops that are maybe
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  growing out or maybe doing something strange that you that
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  you don't realise. I mean that you don't realise
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  because you haven't tried it out.
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  But what if you do try it out? You know, what if you actually
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  do scientifically tested and then it's released out into the
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  farms across the world, which I think is what's been planned to
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  do. You know, I think people are
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  putting putting boundaries in the way when using these sort of
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  mathematical models can simply help you to identify how to
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  produce better crops. I know it's genetically
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  modified, but genetically modified just is a scary
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  sounding phrase. I don't think that it's a scary
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  especially you've done, you know, with safeguards in place.
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  Like I just said, testing first. As it sounds, it's in another
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  field of science. The word radioactivity is seen
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  as dangerous, whereas famously bananas have a lot of have
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  radioactivity in them and yet people eat them all the time.
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  And so, you know, they, they, you could, you could actually
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  check where your bananas were, are with a Geiger counter.
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  And yet people delete them. So I think that that it's, it's
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  forced to say that this is just scary.
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  This is actually, as you say, a good news story.
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  And because you can have a mathematical model predicting
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  what's going to happen. Here's what's going to happen if
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  you change the genome. Here's the good thing about it.
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  It give, it means that you can look for different things to
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  change depending on the environment.
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  It's flexibility and it may be that you get more drought
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  because things get too hot. It may be that you get more
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  flooding because of the changes in the weather, because of
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  climate change. You're getting flash floods from
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  the from the from the rain. But it may be that in fact, it
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  gets too cold and you need your crops to be resistant to cold.
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  Just remembering that a lot of our listeners, we will be
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  sceptical about the fact that we're going to continue having a
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  warming globe. Well, whatever, whatever it's
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  calling, that's going to cause big problems unless you have in
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  place a way to change the resistance of your crops.
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  Of course there'll be a limit to it, but at least you've got some
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  way of keeping the the level of access to food available for
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  longer. So All in all, it is a good news
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  story. Let's not just throw it away.
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  Let's let's promote it and ask Christians, should we should be
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  all the more in favour of this? Well indeed, and in fact, well
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  this is really a big lesson for everyone.
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  It doesn't matter whether you're at school, whether you're in
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  business, etcetera. Maths really makes a difference
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  doesn't it? And so too does science.
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  In fact, the University of Aston, Aston University, and
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  you'll be familiar with that. Mister Pete basically has said
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  that people who struggle with maths obviously have to think of
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  it in a different way. There's often a fear of mass.
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  Bad experiences with mass can lead to the brain associating
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  mass with pain. So the regions of the brain
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  associated with pain processing can be activated when thinking
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  about mass. Now, this thinking only occurs
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  when thinking about mass because it doesn't occur when the brain
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  is actually doing mass. So the point being here is, is
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  that this is a great thing start to use mathematics in a positive
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  way. And Mr. Pete, I know that you
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  would encourage that to to people who are going in
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  education and also in business and and many other places.
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  But really as far as I'm concerned, when we look at
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  mathematics overall, this is really the route to all
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  productivity. And let's call out to all those
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  scientists, because at the end of the day, they are the cream
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  of the crop.