Scientist to live off the ‘lungs of the planet’ in bid to prove value of plants

A CELEBRITY scientist has sealed himself in an airtight foliage-filled chamber in a harrowing test designed to show the power of plants.

Professor Iain Stewart could stay up to two days inside the see-through container for an experiment linked to a new BBC2 series.

The TV presenter and geologist is fronting the first programme in the channel’s How Plants Made The World series.

He clambered into the transparent box, situated at the Eden Project in St Austell, Cornwall, on Thursday night. The chamber measures 2 x 8 x 2.5 metres and is filled with 120 small plants and 30 large ones all producing the vital oxygen he needs to keep him alive.

Prof Stewart, 46, from near Glasgow, moved to Plymouth to teach at the university in 2004. He said the stunt is designed to demonstrate the importance of plants to human survival as the “lungs of the planet”.

The professor of geosciences communication at Plymouth University, Devon, said: “Obviously when I’m in there I’ll be using up oxygen so the oxygen levels will be dropping and I’ll be giving out carbon dioxide, so if it was sustained it would be a lethal combination.”

The BBC series, How Plants Made the World, is likely to be screened in the New Year. .