About Eu-Sol
Find out more about this project.
An introduction to the aims of EU-SOL and how we plan to achieve them. Plus read about the organisations and people working on this project.
Dr. Chris Bowler
Photographer: Unknown. Copyright free
Organisation: Ecole Normale Superieure
Job title: Director of Research
What do you do?
I work on tomato fruit ripening. Understanding how it happens will help us to improve fruit quality and maybe even to make Dutch tomatoes taste like Italian tomatoes!
How did you get involved in the project?
I got interested in science because I wanted to do something useful for humanity. I like to eat tomatoes and wish the tomatoes I buy were as tasty as the ones I work with in my experiments!
Pieces of me
What do you currently have on your bedside table?
What do you currently have on your bedside table? A book about how longitude was first calculated in the 18th century. It is an inspiriring story of the pursuit of sceintific endeavour towards the design of a new watch that revolutionized maritime travel.
What brings you back to the real world at the end of the day?
Reading Time magazine.
If you weren’t yourself which person (historical or otherwise) would you most like to be?
Winston Churchill.
What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever received?
No pain, no gain.
What’s one exciting thing that has happened to you in the course of your work?
Being asked to organize a two year around the world expedition on a yacht to commemorate Charles Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle 200 years ago.
What would be your one desert island luxury?
Laptop computer with wifi connection.
What’s one thing about science you wish the public understood better?
That almost everything we eat today in Europe has been introduced from other continents over the past 2000 years and has been selected and improved by human beings.
A friend has just invited themselves to dinner, what will they be getting?
Pasta followed by fish.
If you had a megaphone what would you be shouting from the roof tops?
That the whole world is growing and eating transgenic crops, and nothing bad has ever happened to the environment or to human health.
What do you think the next big thing will be?
Climate change and food availability.
