S3E03 - Cellulose (Plant Cell Biology)

#Cellulose #GeniusGames #InDefenseOfPlants #Plants #Botany #CellBiology #MolecularBiology #BoardGames #Science #SciComm Summary This mont we talk Cellulose and all things plants with special guest Matt Candeias, of the In Defense of Plants podcast. In this sequel to Cytosis, we dive inside of a plant cell in a worker-placement game that while similar to its predecessor also adds a lot of new mechanics and strategy. As usual, Genius Games's sciecne is top-notch, and we get to talk about photosynthesis, Rrubisco, how plants nearly wrecked the environment (twice!), why C4 photosynthesis is the best photosynthesis, and the weirdest ways plant use their energy. So grab a houseplant and settle back for all things Cellulose. Timestamps 00:00 Introductions02:40 Pollen and pointy sticks07:59 Intro to Cellulose13:47 Rubisco & chloroplasts20:47 The cell wall25:15 Plant movement29:12 Elements of photosynthesis32:09 CAM & C4 photosynthesis38:03 Water and light shaping plant distributions42:14 Weirdest use for cellulose44:52 Nitpick corner51:12 Grades56:27 Wrap-up Links Official Game Website (Genius Games)In Defense of Plants (Podcast & Book)430,000 year old wooden tool (Science.org)The evolution of C4 photosynthesis (New Phytologist)Skunk cabbage and philodendron making heat (In Defense of Plants) Find our socials at https://www.gamingwithscience.net This episode of Gaming with Science™ was produced with the help of the University of Georgia and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Full Transcript (Some platforms truncate the transcript due to length restrictions. If so, you can always find the full transcript on https://www.gamingwithscience.net/ ) Jason 0:00 Hello, and welcome to the gaming with Science Podcast, where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games. Brian 0:10 Today, we're going to talk about cellulose by genius games. Hey, welcome back to gaming with science. This is Brian. This is Jason, and we have a very special guest with us today, Dr Matt Candeias, who is holding up the wall against plant blindness. He is the host of In Defense of Plant, and I'm already breaking my thing. I should be letting him introduce himself, Matt, tell us about yourself. Matt 0:36 Well, first off, thank you guys so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. My name is Matt Candeias, yeah, I'm an ecologist by training. I have always had an interest in sort of the way the natural world interacts with itself, us including and for about the last probably 20 years of my life, that has largely been focused on how plants set the foundation for everything in this world. So yeah, my PhD is in plant ecology. I spent a lot of time looking at how plants kind of form communities and structure themselves over different gradients in the environment. It's been a lot of fun. And as you mentioned, I run in defense of plants, so for many, many years of my life, surprisingly, that number goes up every year and just hits me with a whole new sense of, Oh, I'm getting older. Yeah. It's been a, basically my Ode to My love to plants, and trying to share that passion with the world and try to get people to see plants the way I do. You know, it was one of those things where I just kind of always thought that plants got the short shrift when it came to science communication and the way we looked at the natural world. You know, cheetahs are exciting, elephants are brilliant. Why aren't we talking about plants like that, other than as food or medicine, which is cool, but plants are their own organisms, so I created in defense of plants to celebrate that. And it's been a love affair of communicating that in many different forums, but mostly through podcasting, ever since, Brian 1:51 you are the host, but you have talked to everyone. You have had so many episodes, and you have on special guests pretty much almost every episode. I can't imagine what it's like to schedule all of that. Matt 2:03 Calendars give me anxiety. So it's always anxious. I have tons of anxiety around it, but it's kind of streamlined at this point, and it's just fun. And it turns out that people really want to share their passion too. And when you come in and say, Hey, I'd like to promote the science you're doing, I think it's really cool. People are really receptive to that. So, you know, they my guests make it very easy on me as best as they can. You know, it's the herding cats. The phrase always comes to mind though. You know, we just do our best. Brian 2:29 All right, so I'm glad that you were able to join us for a very plant centric game. I know it's much more cellular biology than ecology, but again, couldn't pass up the opportunity to try to get you to come on and talk to us. But before we get into talking about cellulose, let's do a little bit of science banter. So what's something cool you learned recently or heard about a story or anything like that? We usually let ...