[Amy]

Amy Nelson  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Hi Dr Chris,

Let me start off by saying that I've been religiously newbielink:http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/ [nonactive] since 2005! I'm a designer and I live in sunny Cape Town.

I nearly died when I found out that you were here and I (your self-proclaimed biggest fan on the continent) missed out on seeing you!

Your newbielink:http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/ [nonactive] is the newbielink:http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/ [nonactive] there is and I always vote for you when the podcast awards come around.

But enough crazy fan talk, let's get back to SCIENCE:

This morning I saw an article about the sea slug that's half plant and half animal! I was wondering if you'd seen this and if you might be interested in having him on the show. His mane is Sidney Pierce and he's a biologist at the University of South Florida.

I was just thinking that, besides peaking Helen's interest, the discovery of an animal that produces chlorophyll could have huge effect on the world of science and the possible uses in biomimicry are pretty exciting.

Cheerio,

Amy

What do you think?

[Amy]

I hadn't thought about it like that (Humans and vitamin D)
I think the reason it seemed so incredible was because the slug actually looks like a leaf.

I was wondering if there was a way we could use the technology to power thing in a similar way to solar power?

P.S. I haven't looked into or understand these slugs (or anything that I'm talking about) much. This is all just off-the-top-of-my-head, playful thinking.

[Amy]

Oh, look at this - MIT Researchers Use Photosynthesis to Power Portable Electronic Devices.

newbielink:http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=339 [nonactive]

This is exciting!

[Riki]

U.S. Petroleum Consumption. 19 498 000 barrels/day @ $74 per barrel = $1 442 852 000 per day.
= $36 071.30 per square km per day which is $360.71 per hectare (hectare being 10 000 square m)

Over a year this would be a turnover of $131 660.25 per hectare.  Not bad, makes it the third most valuable agricultural crop after saffron and black truffles.

I have a spare hectare.....