Countdown to The Martian

I’m excited to see so many people writing about The Botanist .. er The Martian, including:

• Alun Salt in AoB Blog (Incidently, Alun wrote about the book back in 2014, inspring me and others to read it),
• Adam Rutherford in the Guardian,
• and Chris Martine in HuffPost (who, very coolly, just named a new species “Solanum watneyi” in honor of the fictional Martian botanist…., hats off to you Chris),
• Chris Arridge in The Conversation deconstructs the suitability of Martian soil (with and without .. ahem .. amendments) for growing potatoes,
• The Crop Science Society of America observes that good nutrition (human and soil) benefits from greater crop diversity, specifically by including pulses,
• Emma Cooper notes that at least blight won’t be a problem…
• The University of Arizona reports, “The Martian Food Growing System: It’s Here”
• and here’s mine again from this blog.

(I’ll add to this list if you let me know of other botany-biased reviews).

The film opens this week, and the preview reviews have already been quite positive. Several of us scattered around the world are planning to go on Friday 2 October, as a sort of virtual film club. Why don’t you join us? I look forward to hearing the perceptions of the plant science community.

Update: Did I enjoy the film? Yes.