Every street in Manchester has a church building in it. Why is this not unusual? The answer to that at the end of the show.

My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral.

You know those quizzes where they ask you about the chemical symbol for oxygen or the year the light bulb was invented?

Well, on this show, we're more likely to ask you for the chemical symbol for a light bulb

or when oxygen was invented.

Hoping to get their facts right today, first, we have engineer and author,

and perhaps most known to this particular audience as a judge on Robot Wars.

Please welcome Dr. Lucy Rogers. Thank you very much.

Welcome to the show. This is your first time playing. I had a look at your website to try and work out

how to introduce you. And there are so many things you're working on right now. What's the big

project at the minute? Currently I'm writing a book, a science book for adults, popular science,

but I'm making it sort of a travel book and then just sliding the science in so that people

who won't normally pick up a science book will hopefully read it as well. This is your first time

on the show and we've got two returning players. How do you feel about the questions that are not as straightforward as

usual? Oh, definitely nervous. Definitely. We have two returning players joining you today. First of all,

from Science IRL, we have plant biologist and science communicator, Dr. Molly Edwards. Welcome.

Hi, Tom. Great to be here. How are you feeling about coming back to the show after a little while away? How was the last time? I'm ready. It's been almost a year, I think. I'm ready. I'm so excited. What have you been working on in that year? I've spent the year visiting really cool plant biology labs and making videos about all the cool plant science that's going on in the

country. So I'm excited to share that. What kind of places have you been to? Because obviously, I have not

been doing as much travel over the last year as I used to. Whereabouts have you seen? Oh my gosh.

I've been to Arizona, to upstate New York, visiting scientists who are engineering plants to be more

resilient to climate change. So like creating plants that can turn red when they're stressed and, like, give farmers a heads up that they need some help, that kind of thing. Also, return to the show, our third player today from PBS Stargazers and from his own podcast, That's Absurd. Please elaborate. Trace Dominguez, welcome back to the show. Hello, I'm very excited to be back.

Well, I had a lovely time on That's Absurd, Please Elaborate. We talked for slightly too long, I think, about what would happen in the Mighty Ducks scene.

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