The “rye-se” of bread

Over the past 18 month, breadmaking has experienced a surge of popularity as people look for new hobbies to explore within the home. This increase in popularity was so intense that there was actually a flour shortage across UK supermarkets in April 2020.

Whilst the lockdown-driven excitement surrounding it was short-lived, the skill behind breadmaking as existed for thousands of years. It likely became a staple of our cuisine when early humans began transitioning from a nomadic lifestyle to farming-based community. Today, it is undoubtedly one of the most important foodstuffs on the planet, with the British sandwich market alone valued at around £8bn.

For your average white loaf of bread, the four basic ingredients are flour, water, salt and yeast. Here, we’ll take a look at these ingredients and what function they serve.

Flour power

Flour makes up the foundation of any loaf of bread. White flour is made by first separating the different components of wheat and extracting the flour from the grain through a series of sieves. To make wholemeal flour, other parts of the wheat grain are added back into the processed flour.

The flour found in wheat contains two key proteins called glutenin and gliadin (known together as gluten proteins). When exposed to water, these proteins interact with each other to create a large, webbed gluten network held together by disulphide and hydrogen bonds. The network is what gives bread its texture and structure. When you visit the shop, you’ll likely be surrounded by a wide variety of flours, for example ‘Plain white flour’, or ‘Strong white bread flour’. The main difference between these flours are their respective protein contents, i.e., how much gluten they contain. Strong white bread flour has a uniquely high protein content (10-13%) – this means that it has enough gluten to form the strong networks required for bread. Comparatively, plain white flour has around 8% protein content, too little to form the kind of gluten networks demanded by bread, but perfect when making light and fluffy cakes.

Flour and water alone lay the foundations of a loaf of bread, but to perfect it, salt is added both for flavour and to introduce toughness. Gluten strands have a net positive charge, so they repel each other. The salt ions can shield this charge and let strands interact more intimately – tightening the network and resulting in a more controlled loaf.

The need to knead

After the ingredients are mixed together, you then knead the bread – transforming it from a wet and rough texture to a smooth and silky one. As your work the dough, the gluten molecules untangled and straightened out, aligning them into a more evenly structured web. After tightening the dough into a ball, most bakers will leave for an hour or two – to let the yeast do its job – until it’s doubled in size. And what does the yeast do during this time, I hear you ask?

Last but not yeast…

Yeast are a single-celled fungi that feed on the natural sugars found in flour to produce carbon dioxide gas. The gas is caught by the webbed gluten network and inflates the bread dough, stretching out the interwoven molecules to form the hole-filled structure when you cut into a fresh, crusty loaf of bread. After the first rise, the bread is ‘knocked back’ and deflated before letting it rise once more. This removes any large air bubbles and redistributes the nutrients in bread, giving the final product a more consistent texture.

Bready or not, here it comes

After being shaped, the dough is then ready to be put in the oven. When subjected to the intense, high temperatures found within, the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast expands rapidly outwards, pushing against the gluten network and inflating the structure to give the porous crumb found on the inside of any good-quality loaf. In the oven, the Malliard reaction also occurs, transforming the bread from a pale yellow to a warm golden-brown. The Malliard reaction is a complex series of reactions that occur when certain amino acids and sugars interact in the presence of enough heat. As well as changing the colour of the dough, the Maillard reaction helps create the toasty flavours you experience in a freshly baked loaf of bread.

So next time you tuck into some ciabatta or naan with some friends, you can be that person and remind everyone about all the intricate chemical reactions that have gone into creating the loaf.

After a long five years, the Olympic Games are here! We are nearing the end now, but the last few weeks have given the sporting world some great moments to cheer over. From Adam Peaty’s second gold to Tom Daley and Matty Lee’s first, it has been a welcome break.

One of my favourite parts of Tokyo 2020 (or the 2021Olympics) was that it gave a lot of sports that may typically ‘avoid the limelight’ the chance to shine. While swimming may not usually be on TV every weeknight, it’s front and centre at the Olympics with some big names dominating the pool. Records seem to be constantly broken, and the field seems to be filled with swimmers who are “the fastest in the world”. Adam Peaty – Team GB’s prized breaststroker – holds the 20 fastest 100m breaststroke times, which means that he’s consistently beating himself. And with newer, faster swimmers entering the pool, now-retired Michael Phelps’ records are already disappearing, only four of his previous 39 world records still stand in 2021.

But how are swimmers still getting faster and faster? Are we eventually going to reach a plateau of what is humanly possible, and will that be soon?

An introduction to speed swimming

Speed swimming is, as it sounds, all about going fast. There are four swim strokes to choose from: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly, as well as IM – or individual medley – which is a combination of all four. Races in the pool can either be ‘short-course’ or ‘long-course’ with one lap, or length, of the pool being 25 m or 50 m, respectively. At the Olympics, a long-course competition, the shortest race in the pool is the 50m, where you swim from one end of the pool to the other as fast as humanly possible, and the longest is the 1500m, a gruelling 30 laps of the pool.

The rules are simple – start when the whistle blows and touch the wall at every turn. Breaststroke and butterfly turns can carry a bit more risk – you have to make sure two hands touch the wall. But in general, the rules are straightforward, with the overall goal of each race being to finish first.

How do you go fast? The physics of swimming

To improve speed and overall performance, swimmers need to maximise propulsion and minimise hydrodynamic drag.

Maximising propulsion in water is relatively intuitive. It can be achieved by kicking harder, pulling more effectively and increasing the number of strokes made before taking a breath.

However, minimising hydrodynamic drag in water – which is approximately 800 times denser than air – requires a bit more strategy. Hydrodynamic drag is a combination of friction, pressure and wave drag, with all three playing an important role in drag management.

Wave drag – associated with turbulence at the water’s surface – occurs when kinetic energy from the swimmer is lost as it is converted into potential energy in the form of waves (Marinho et al., 2011). To lessen this type of drag, swimmers aim to keep their bodies under the surface as much as possible, reducing the formation of these waves.

Frictional resistance can result from a swimmer’s bathing costume or even their hair or skin. In contrast to runners, who can wear jewellery, loose clothing and let their hair down, swimmers aim to make their bodies as smooth and streamlined as possible to reduce frictional drag in the water. Strategies to reduce frictional drag include wearing racing costumes made from innovative materials, tucking their hair and goggle straps into bathing caps, and even shaving their entire bodies. In fact, some swimmers will even go as far as shaving their eyebrows to reduce frictional drag.

Pressure drag – also known as ‘form’ drag – is due to the distortion of flow around the swimmer. The flow of water around a swimmer’s body depends on the swimmer’s shape, size and velocity. As a result, swimmers often aim for ‘streamlined’ positions, where the body is as long and straight as possible to move through the water with the smallest amount of resistance. Less streamlined bodies create eddies, swirls of water that lead to a pressure differential between a swimmer’s front and rear, adding drag and slowing the swimmer down.

Ultimately, it’s a combination of strength and several strategies to reduce drag that is helping swimmers swim fast, but just how fast have we got?

How fast are we?

The world record progression of the 100m men’s freestyle is a good illustration of just how fast swimmers have become over the last 100 years or so. From Hungarian swimmer Zoltán Halmay’s time of 1 minute and 6 seconds in 1905 to Brazil’s César Cielo’s 46.91 seconds in 2008, swimmers have shed almost 20 seconds in this race.

This reduction in time certainly relates to the fitness of the swimmers. However, improved costumes and a better understanding of drag management play an essential role as well. Halmay, the first swimmer to break this record in 1905, swam in open water, without a swim cap or goggles, in a swimming costume that was likely made of wool, cotton or terrycloth. Several decades later, Mark Spitz – the 1970’s version of Michael Phelps – didn’t wear a swim cap and would compete with a prominent moustache that inevitably added to his frictional drag. Records continued to tick down slowly until seven records were broken in 2008 and 2009 during a time now referred to as the ‘super suit era’ of revolutionary swimming costumes.

Supported by NASA, Speedo designed an innovative swimming costume in 2004 to ‘reduce drag’. The LZR Racer was a full body swimsuit with ultrasonically welded seams that helped to reduce drag by 6%. Additionally, its ultrasonically bonded zip reduced drag by 8%. Within a month of its release, swimmers wearing the suit broke 13 world records. But by 2010, two years later, the suit was banned in competitions by FINA – the international water sports committee. This new ruling prohibited any swimming costumes that might aid speed, buoyancy and performance in order to create a more equal playing field for swimmers, as this technology could offer a clear advantage to swimmers who could afford these revolutionary suits. Thanks to the LZR Racer, swimmers can now only wear swimming costumes that go as far as their knees, the fabric must be permeable, and they cannot have a fastening device – such as a zip.

The future of swimming

Advanced technology, understanding of hydrodynamic drag, increased athleticism and improved training have all enabled drastic improvements in swimming speed over the last hundred years. With athletes better equipped than ever before, the margin of improvement is now in the fractions of seconds, but we are still seeing improvement, nonetheless. While the men’s 100m freestyle world record has stood since 2008, the women’s 100m was more recently broken in 2017 by Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjöström, beating Australian Cate Campbell’s 2016 record by 0.35 seconds.

So, while it’s unlikely that the next great swimmer is going to suddenly smash the previous world record by a margin of 5 seconds, these times will continue to tick down. From unique bodies – for instance Michael Phelps’ 2 m wingspan – to dedicated training regimes faster times are inevitable, and I don’t think we’ve met the fastest 100m swimmer of all time just yet.

References:

Emojis are everywhere. That’s an undeniable fact. Currently, 3,521 emojis are out in the wild, with the latest update in September 2020 bringing us 217 new ways to emote. There’s a lot we can learn from our use of emojis, such as how our use of positive emoji faces declined by 5.63% in the last year. Depressing yet interesting statistics aside, there’s whole branches of science looking into how emojis are changing us, which – besides being pretty neat in general – has some interesting implications for B2B marketing.

Emojis are creating brand new brain patterns

Humans are generally pretty good at subconsciously mimicking each other’s’ emotional states. It’s called ‘emotional contagion’, and we’ve recorded it in other primates, dogs, and even chickens. There are a number of suggestions as to why it evolved in the wild, but one common theory is that it helped animals that live in groups to avoid predators, as they would respond to each other’s reactions upon sensing a threat.

Rewind back fast forward back to the 21st century and emotional contagion is the basis of human empathy and a big factor in how we build relationships. It’s easy to read the intention and emotion behind someone’s words when you can see their face during a conversation, or even the tone of voice on the phone. But strip that all back to basic text on a screen and emotional contagion becomes a bit more difficult.

This is where the original emojis come into play. In 2014, scientists showed 20 participants a number of images of a human face, as well as the text-based emoticon: :-). They discovered that the same parts of our brain that fire up when we look at a human face also activate when looking at emojis. And as you might have guessed, similar effects ensue. Not only might our mood alter to reflect which emojis have just passed our glance, but we might also alter our own facial expressions to match them.

What’s even more interesting however, is that when scientists inverted the text-based emoji to be upside down compared to its traditional format, the brain failed to recognise the emoji as a face. This reinforces the idea that an innate neural response to emoticons does not exist. That is to say, a baby wouldn’t recognise the text-based emoji as a face regardless of which way up it was presented. The fact that we’ve learnt to recognise the punctuation, and emojis as a whole, as a face shows a culturally-created neural response.

Emojis are changing the way we speak

There is significant evidence that emojis are also impacting our vocabulary as well. In an in-depth study into emoji use on the platform, Instagram monitored the text habits of four groups of new users chosen between late 2012 and early 2014. In these groups, Instagram observed the percentage of text posts using emojis and the number of posts using internet slang such as: “xoxo”, “omg”, “lol”, “haha” etc.

All four groups showed similar patterns. Initially, the number of posts containing slang or emojis were relatively close to each other. As the years went on however, a strong negative correlation was observed. As users started using emojis more, reaching around the 40% mark of all their posts by the end of the study in 2015, slang dropped dramatically, to as low as 5%. And while we know correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, it certainly gives us quite striking food for thought.

Should we use emojis in B2B marketing?

So, after all this the question remains: should you use emojis in science marketing? Luckily for us, there have been ample studies, both small and large, and the evidence is pretty overwhelmingly in one direction.

One simple A/B study ran two ads with exactly the same content side-by-side on Twitter with one ad including emojis and one without. The results were pretty telling. The emoji-containing ad saw 25.4% higher engagement and 22.2% lower cost per engagement.

Another study looked at including emojis in email subject lines and found some interesting cultural differences. While some mainland European countries, such as Spain or France, did not particularly alter their open rates with the inclusion of emojis, with France actually taking a small dip, the UK and the US were a totally different story. The study found that, on average, Americans were 43% more likely to open emails with emojis in the subject line, growing their open rates to 27-29%, depending on the emoji used, compared to a 19.5% control.

There’s one more study that is of particular interest to science industry marketing, however. After analysing four billion push notifications for emoji use, a 2020 study found that industries that one would consider more conservative actually benefited the most from emoji use. While B2C-focused industries such as Food and Delivery saw a net increase of 45% in their click-through-rates, B2B industries like Business and Finance saw a net increase of 128% to their click-through-rates, rising from 5.46% to 12.45% and proving once and for all that emojis are not just for consumer-focused businesses.

It’s always worth running some A/B tests to see if content featuring emoji use will work for you and your unique audience, but hopefully the above studies have at least given you some drive to try it out. Pharmaceutical marketing, similar to the financial industries in the study above, has been slow to adopt these new trends, yet a lot of potential awaits early adopters.

So yes, use emojis in your B2B scientific marketing until your heart’s content.

If you enjoyed this blog and want to learn more, get in touch with @JoeyRelton and @NotchCom to learn more, or check out ‘The Everyday Science of Emojis’ podcast on The Scientific Podcasting Network.

The last 18 months has provided us with a huge series of challenges, but as with everything, when you look hard enough you can always find a silver lining. For me, one of the greatest things to happen last year was that the nation’s sweetheart (and a personal hero of mine), Sir David Attenborough, joined Instagram. However, in true 2020 fashion, he left again after just two months – but it was good while it lasted!

So, why did he do it? Despite not being active on any other social media accounts, in his first post on the platform, Attenborough explained, “we’re running this account because we believe that we can create change and save our planet”. With around 27 million Instagram users in the UK alone, he definitely found the right podium to reach the masses. Breaking the world record at the time, he became the fastest user to reach one million followers in just 4 hours 44 minutes. Although this record has since been broken again, it clearly demonstrated that there was an audience on the platform that were excited for another way to keep up-to-date with his rallying calls for climate justice.

Alongside finding another platform to spread his message, it is also possible that this foray into social media was used as a marketing tactic. On the 28th of September 2020, his series ‘David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet’ was released in cinemas and available to stream from the 4th of October on Netflix. Unfortunately, the account has been inactive since the 31st of October – although the content is still accessible for users to rewatch. He’s since explained in interviews that he was persuaded to do a message on conservation, but he found it too hard to keep up with this new form of media. It’s likely that he really did prefer connecting with his viewers via post; however, it is also probable that his team saw the power of social media to stir up a marketing buzz around the new documentary release.

Social media in marketing

Globally, there are around 1 billion Instagram users, and over 70% of that demographic is aged 34 and under. With 63% of its users logging in at least once a day and spending an average of 53 minutes online, Instagram and other popular social media platforms present a powerful and free marketing opportunity for everyone, from small businesses to established brands.

There’s no cost associated with setting up an Instagram account, so once you’ve managed to capture your target audience, it’s easy to ‘influence’ those followers. In terms of more traditional marketing of products by brands, around 90% of people with an Instagram account follow at least one brand. Another survey also found that 89% of users said that a brands presence on Instagram was most influential compared to other social media platforms. But why does it have so much influencing power?

Visually appealing

As with every social media channel, it’s important to have a unique function and Instagram found its niche in the market as an image sharing platform. Since its acquisition by Facebook in 2012, the application has evolved to allow its users to post a variety of different types of content ranging from carousels (multiple images in a single post) to videos and the ability to broadcast live videos with up to three other users.

The power of visuals to aid engagement with content and to enhance the retention of new information has been well documented in research. One study found that even after three days, humans can recall over 2,000 images in a recognition test with around 90% accuracy. This is believed to be due to the pathways in our brains that process words and pictures differently when committing them to memory. It also explains why you haven’t been able to stop thinking about that cute puppy video you watched five times yesterday!

Young voices

With high levels of engagement and a generally younger demographic, it’s no wonder that Instagram’s visually appealing way of consuming information is rising as a popular way to target younger audiences – and when it comes to issues related to climate change, this is key.

In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a greater call to action on climate change from younger generations. Sparked by then5-year-old Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg – who gained popularity in 2018 for protesting for climate action outside Swedish parliament in the lead up to their election – we saw the emergence of the Youth Climate Strike and Fridays for Future. These organised events allowed students across the globe to take to the streets and demand their local governments take action to bring climate justice and equality to all.

But it’s not just the younger teens advocating for their futures. In a report published by Climate Outreach in 2014, surveys suggested that 70% of students (aged 18-25) were either fairly or very concerned about climate change. With the heavy media coverage of the school strikes, it’s likely this figure has since risen over the last few years, and more young people are actively engaging with resources that spread messages of environmental justice and hope for a more sustainable future.

Echo chamber

Over the last decade, and as social media usage has risen to new heights, it has begun to highlight the echo chambers it has created on polarising topics such as climate change. Echo chambers refer to situations where views and beliefs on certain topics become amplified by their repetition and reinforcement among small groups of the population.

The concern is that they can obstruct the flow of information, often in fairly dangerous ways as seen through the rise of fake news. However, there is an argument that they can create safe spaces online, for communities to share ideas and stories.

This has been especially powerful in bringing young people together in the fight against climate change. These climate echo chambers have given rise to a number of Instagram accounts dedicated to creating informative and educational resources on environmental topics. Some examples include @Atmos, @futureearth and @earthrise.studio.

These same online echo chambers are likely the ones that Attenborough was targeting with his call-to-action videos. However, due to his wider reach, it’s not inconceivable that he may have had the power to introduce long-term fans of his work to a side of the climate debate they may not have otherwise stumbled into on their own. Healing the planet and bringing people together, is there anything he can’t do?

Social media killed the radio star

With a high number of active users aged 18-34, most of whom are likely to already be advocating for similar messages on climate change, it’s easy to see why Attenborough chose Instagram as the social platform to spread his message and promote his upcoming documentary series. Without exact data, it’s hard to conclusively say that Attenborough’s brief Instagram presence had a positive impact on how his latest series was received. Nevertheless, as with most of his documentaries, A Life on Our Planet received a 9/10 rating on IMDb and 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, helping to demonstrate how his work continues to inspire people of all ages.

As for Instagram, it’s visually appealing nature and popularity among younger audiences serves as the perfect recipe for content creators and influencers to spread informative resources on climate and environmental topics.

Whether it was a marketing ploy or just another way to broadcast a message on conservation, as always, Sir David captured the hearts and minds of young climate activists everywhere, and for that our planet is eternally grateful.

Scientific advancement is dependent on communication between many different groups of people, including when presenting new findings to the wider world. Good communication is therefore crucial to the success of science, and in a time of fake news and sensationalist journalism, it’s perhaps more important than ever to effectively and meaningfully engage with the audience.

In this quest for inspiring diverse audiences with the latest scientific innovations, there is great potential for exploring methods outside of the conventional means of science communication, such as writing or presentations. Studies have shown that drawing on narratives and evoking emotion is an effective means of communicating science and promoting retention of knowledge. Science documentaries such as the BBC’s hugely popular Planet Earth and Blue Planet series use this approach to bring awareness to pressing topics, including climate change. Moving away from literal representations of science, sci-art is a growing discipline. This involves fusing science with visual art to produce an aesthetically engaging depiction of a topic, promoting interest and learning. And it doesn’t end there. In honour of International Dance Day, we are exploring the use of dance as a creative means of science communication. Read on to learn more.

Dance and narrative: a classical combination

Dance is an art form with a huge potential for visually portraying narrative and emotion. It has always been a medium for not only entertainment, but also for telling stories. It is intrinsically emotional, both for the dancer and the audience. Some studies suggest that audiences attribute characterisation and emotion even to abstract dances. Considering the appeal of visually representing science and the impact that narrative can have on emotional engagement and knowledge retention, does dance offer untapped potential for communicating scientific ideas?

In the spirit of scientific investigation, the combination of science and dance has begun to be explored.

Research suggests that dance can be an educational tool in the classroom. It can help students to understand complex concepts in a kinaesthetic way, or even be used in a research context, as an initial alternative to computer modelling. Beyond this, there are also some exciting examples of how dance performance can be used to enhance spoken information and entertain, engage and inform audiences about scientific topics.

Dance your PhD

The ‘Dance Your PhD’ contest has been running since 2008, inviting researchers to portray their PhD through dance. Entries cover scientific topics ranging from developmental biology and neuroscience to the electro-dynamics of superconductors, even continuing with social distancing measures in place.

Whilst dance background and training differ between entrants – and some entries seem more like an exercise in film-making or song-writing than in choreography – there is something very engaging about watching people physically represent their own research. And if audience engagement is the main goal of science communication, maybe they’re onto something. The creator of the contest, John Bohannon, explores this potential in his TED talk, ‘Dance vs. PowerPoint’. Part way into the talk, several dancers from the Black Label Movement dance company join Bohannon on stage and enact the concepts he describes, including his description of the physics of superfluids. The talk – or rather, performance – effectively makes the point that dancers can help to convey ideas to an audience in a captivating and compelling way, even when those ideas are as complex as lasers and particles.

The art of balance

In most of the explorations into dance performance for science communication, the dance is supported by words, either written, spoken or sung. This is inevitable in a discipline as complex as science, so it may be a challenge for dance to stand alone as a science communication tool. However, it clearly has the power to enhance the communication of otherwise complex and un-memorable information, embodying the narrative and eliciting emotion.

Whilst science will continue to rely on the careful and descriptive use of words to communicate findings, it is exciting to consider the possibilities of art forms such as dance in engaging with a wider audience.

If this blog made you feel like dancing, waltz on over to Twitter and get in touch with @GabyAtNotch, and follow @NotchCom for more content.

Further reading

Are dogs truly man’s best friend?

With working from home now a common occurrence for many across the UK, every day has been Bring-Your-Pet-To-Work day. The cost of a puppy doubled over the course of 2020 and the nation has gone pet-mad, revelling in the increased opportunities to play with their beloved furry friend throughout the working week. But amongst all the gravy bones and fluffy toys it’s got us here at Notch wondering – why DO we love our pets so much?

As stated by the researcher John Bradshaw, dogs don’t provide the human race with any services that are essential to our survival. Unlike babies, pets don’t harbour the opportunity to continue our genes, and unlike other animals they don’t offer us food or clothing materials. They are merely an expense that builds year on year as more products and pet safety procedures are introduced. So, what is it about dogs that makes us tolerate the £500 cheques for chipping and furry wake-up calls? There have been many theories to explore this, each one presenting a new angle to explain the timeless wonder.

Hormonal Response: The ‘Gooey Warm Feeling’

One theory to explain why we love pets is hormonal response. A review of Meg Daley’s book, ‘Made For Each Other’, states that animals appear to have cells directly under their skin that activate the hormone oxytocin in the brain and the top of the spinal cord. Levels of oxytocin in the body, also known as the ‘love hormone’, tend to rise significantly when stroking animals – a response similar to that experienced when kissing, touching or breastfeeding. According to Daley, the optimum number of strokes to achieve this response is 40 per minute, and the oxytocin produced drives us to nurture and form an attachment with our pets that is similar to that of mother and child.

Whilst touch plays a big part in the release of this hormone, it’s not the only sense. There is also a correlation between time spent looking into the eyes of dogs and the gazer’s oxytocin levels. Therefore, between stroking and eye contact, this is how the bond is said to be formed that keeps pets under our roofs and in our hearts.

Communication is Key

In a report written by Estep and Hetts, the development and similarity of communication systems is another explanation for why certain animals, such as dogs, are man’s best friend. Humans are social creatures by nature, and the highly developed systems of communication that these animals present make humans more likely to interact and form attachments. Estep and Hetts list dogs and horses as two animals with highly sophisticated systems, whilst cats and guinea pigs tend to have less structured systems – explaining the occurrence of familiar human conditions such as separation anxiety in dogs, but not in other common household pets.

Genetics

Alternatively, a recent study published in Science suggests that the untimely bond between man and dog is more biological than behavioural. Through the analysis of 27 ancient dog genomes, a link between ancient humanity and dogs can be established, leading us to believe that such a friendship has existed for more than 11,000 years. The study shows that this historic connection runs deeper than just time however, with many similarities apparent between the two ancient genetic profiles.

Culture

Harold Herzog of Western Carolina University reduces our love of pets to mere trends and norms. He states that pet-keeping is purely cultural, with some cultures keeping pets because their cuteness is established and domestication approved. In these cultures, he suggests pet-keeping to be a ‘socially contagious’ trend that is continuously reinstated by its own popularity. This is whilst other cultures, such as the Kenyan Kiembu tribe and South Korean civilians, only know dogs as a means for protection or even just a late-night snack! But what do you think?

Get in touch with @EveAtNotch and @NotchCom on Twitter to let us know where you stand!

As many of us are without our usual escape to the office, it has become more important than ever to create a peaceful, happy space at home. For me this has meant a new-found dedication to feng shui. A common aesthetic goal for many aspiring decorators (myself included) is to bring the outdoors, indoors. No garden? No problem! Long gone are the days when plants were simply the domain of avid gardeners or botany enthusiasts. As I watch aloe vera creep onto every bookcase and spider plants dominating every windowsill, it is clear that houseplants are increasingly becoming part of the furniture. In recent years the market for houseplants has boomed, with independent shops emerging around every corner to satisfy our foliage fantasies. In this instalment, we continue our exploration of plants, and decide whether the obsession is simply the latest design trend or if there is a scientific explanation behind the greenery (spoiler: there is!).

Nature or nurture?

We all recognise that feeling when we nurture and care for our plants, to then be rewarded with a sprouting leaf or blooming flower – pure joy. Amazingly, this innate emotional connection with plants has a name: biophilia. From an evolutionary perspective, throughout human history it has been vital to understand nature and adopt certain behavioural responses in order to survive and thrive in the natural world. The biophilia hypothesis suggests that humans’ instinctive association with the natural environment persists through a combination of genetic inheritance and cultural learning. With every visit to a nature reserve; every desire to embark on a fresh country walk; every stroke of a paintbrush on a landscape painting, biophilia could be at play. Nature is not only our entertainment, but our release and our muse. Our love of houseplants is no exception.

Psychological benefits

The impact of nature on mental health is a heavily researched area, with studies uncovering a significant link between nature exposure and mental health effects. These include a reduction in depression, anxiety and stress. The relationship has proven to be more prevalent amongst those in urban areas where nature exposure is rarer, leaving less capability for habituation. The basis for this nature exposure includes direct interaction, as well as simply viewing it and appreciating it from an aesthetic perspective.

Office environments are, unsurprisingly, associated with high levels of stress and have therefore been the focus of many studies – with the primary aim being to discover what can stimulate greater productivity whilst reducing stress in the office. A study found that when plants were introduced into the workplace, employee performance increased. This is because when we work in an environment where we are able to be psychologically engaged (via the plant), we are happier and consequently work better. Although many of the current studies focus on the benefits of plants in an office, with our homes becoming our primary workplace, the results hold true for houseplants in the home.

Health benefits

What is often overlooked when discussing the benefits of indoor plants is the phytoremediation capacity of plants and the related health benefits. Air pollution is often associated with the busy roads of bustling cities, yet recent studies have found that indoor air pollution from the emissions of our daily household items can be very damaging. With every pop of the toaster or lighting of the stove, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are released, which are gaseous chemicals that can be harmful when inhaled. The concern only heightens as we enter winter and ventilation decreases as we shut our doors to keep out the biting cold. Could houseplants help us clean our indoor air quality?

Research seems to suggest this could be the case. When studying the effect of potted plants on total VOC levels within an office environment it was found that when the total VOC level reached a certain threshold, large reductions were found in offices that contained plants. We can assume the threshold initiates a VOC-removal response in plants, demonstrating their importance as efficient and sustainable bioremediation systems to improve indoor air quality.

Finally we have proof that investing in houseplants is not about simply adorning your living space with the latest accessories. In fact, they provide several mental and physical benefits. So, whether you want to start with a low maintenance yucca or a more demanding calathea, maybe it’s time to take the leaf of faith (sorry) and brighten up your shelves and windowsills with a bit of greenery – added bonus, it also makes you super trendy!

If you’ve got the green thumb and want more houseplant content, get in touch with @RachaelAtNotch and follow @NotchCom