During the Bloom festival, NUIG professor Derek O’Keeffe brought the cardiovascular system to life. the hearth’s cardiovascular system was shown at the Bloom festival. The ‘Croí’ garden shows how to improve your heart health. The entrance is a healthy heart vessel – open, and clean. There is also a heart vessel that is blocked with flowers, which is the cardiovascular system in poor condition. A lot of modern medicine stems from flowers or natural plants. such as Chamomile which is used in depression medicines. One of the plants on display in the festival is Foxglove is a white flower that gives the chemical digitalis which can be turned into digoxin which is used for the hearth.
Derek O’Keeffe also used the help of technology to show the dependency we have on bees and their dependency on us. The technology that Derek demonstrated was a ‘drone bee’ that would collect pollen by the color of said flower in order to complete the task of pollination without the aid of natural bees.
‘I want people to think about why we might need drone bees in a future with no natural bees. We are in a position now where we can reverse that and actually increase the natural bee numbers with insect hotels in your garden; by not using pesticides; by leaving wild borders in your flower hedges.’ – Derek said about the need for an abundant bee population.
Links to other articles:
Bloom festival on RTE hosted by Áine lawlor and Marty Morrisey
