09 Sep 2011
A man will be sealed inside an airtight chamber for two days as part of a science project for a new BBC series.
Scientist and television presenter professor Iain Stewart will be joined in the transparent chamber by dozens of plants, which he will be totally dependant on to provide enough oxygen to stop him from suffocating.
The spectacle, which will take place at the Eden project in Cornwall for new BBC Two series, How Plants Made The World, aims to show how important plants are to the survival of the human race as the “lungs of the planet”.
Professor Stewart, a geologist who has presented a number of different TV shows about planet Earth, is also a professor of geosciences communication at Plymouth University.
He said: “This experiment has never been done before with a human – it seems a fascinating challenge to see if plants really could keep a person alive. I cannot think of a more powerful way of driving home to the viewer the importance of photosynthesis.”
Copyright Press Association 2011