Plant intelligence

[treebing]

http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/23/131223fa_fact_pollan

Really fascinating article about plant intelligence and communication. Interesting question, do plants feel pain? And if they don't, why do they manufacture anesthesia (ether) when cut? Why does anesthesia work on plants? Are plants capable of learning and memory? Great food for thought in this article including how for forests communicate and trade resources with each other as well as with othe species in a system much like the Internet. Read it!

 

[treebing]

Here is a video that goes with article
http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/12/video-do-bean-plants-show-intelligence.html

 

[JontreeHI]

Cool article Kevin.
That video is wild.

 

[oceans]

Very cool. There was another post here a while ago with a similar tone. Some folks had converted plant hormone signals into music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZaokNmQ4eY

 

[KTSmith]

That is a good article. As a research plant physiologist/pathologist for about 30 years now, I can say that Michael Pollan isn't describing much that is new. Folks, even some scientists, have a real urge to anthropomorphize, to put human motivations and reactions over anything that plants and animals do. Trees as with all plants (and fungi and protozoa, etc.) are all highly reactive and directive, they know what they need and they go after it, as we do.
Oh, and I don't think you mean ether in the initial post. Ethylene, yes, is released by wounded plant cells. Very different compounds.There are some ether bonds with some plant lipids, but not free ether, I don't think!
Yes, outside of work stuff, most of my news comes from the New Yorker and NPR!

 

[treehumper]

Very thought provoking. Well worth keeping track of the developments from this.

 

[RyanCafferky]

If you want to read something really interesting on this same subject pick up "A Language Older Than Words" by Derrick Jensen. It has a section that delves into this same territory.

Recognition of plants and all other living things being interconnected is something that modern science cannot recognize. Society cannot recognize it because just by doing so it would be signing its death warrant. It would be very similar to the military complex recognizing that they cause more suffering around the world than good. An impossibility.

 

[treehumper]

It's really a debate over semantics not science. This is the way we move forward slowly, painfully, clutching to the past longingly...

 

[Daniel]

anyone that hasn't figured out that trees have their own intelligence is dumb as a stump...

 

[treebing]

I don't have a problem with anthromorphozing. We are so similar. It seems helpful to look at ourselves when studying others

 

[treehumper]

Its not that Daniel, its trying to define it in a way that makes sense. Just like trees compartmentalizing not healing.