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Noted New York photographer and filmmaker, Andrew Zuckerman makes intimate portraits of animals, people and flowers set against his signature white background. He says that this distinctive approach allows him to remove subjects from their context and enables a larger conversation between them.

Professor Lars Chittka is the founder of the Research Centre for Psychology at Queen Mary, University of London. One of the things that he studies at his lab is the way plants interact with other creatures, especially pollinators such as bees, which turns out to be quite a complex relationship of mutual evolutionary influences.

Biologist Lars Chittka suggests that we use genetic engineering to breed hybrid and fantasy creatures that human imagination has spawned, from Greek mythology through fairy tales, e.g. mermaids, minotaurs, centaurs, gnomes. On Earth, there are no more new continents with strange life forms to discover and we are a long way from exploring alien life, so in the meantime, to combat boredom, we should invent our own life forms and shapes.

The Language of Flowers

A rose maybe a rose maybe a rose

to Juliet and her lover’s nose

but not to the flower itself

that doesn’t know a phylum from a family

but may hold secrets of different kind

known only to the members of its tribe.

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For all we know, one red-petaled wonder

may choose to love another

overwhelmed by mysterious passion

that defies reason and practical promiscuity.

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Perhaps it’s not just the instinct to breed

or selection for survival alone

that guides the union of two plants;

perhaps not all is left to chance

and even in the vegetal world.

New paths for growing businesses in our changing world, with Canadian investor Sherry Coutu, Ugandan coffee entrepreneur Andrew Rugasira and American anthropologist Catherine Dolan.