Anybody else thinking of the very early Doonesbury strips?
2. Now that you mention it, yes. Zonker!
corn saplings?! My ideolect reserves that for trees.
3: Based on some searches, I wonder if they meant to write "seedling".
Somebody's already writing "The Secret Life of Plants" . . . nevermind.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Plant-Knows-Field-Senses/dp/0374288739
Would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?
Yeah, probably. Maybe we should thank them and bless them first, but there's not going to be much of a change. We're pretty rapacious.
I read some fun research last year about plants communicating with one another through chemical compounds. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/savory-individuals
Apparently, the plants try to defend themselves from herbivores when they know their neighbors are getting chomped.
Plants have feelings now? Fuck it, I'm taking up cannibalism.
Oh, Parsli. Remember how you missed the Paul Revere reference?
9: I thought it was a Jack Handy reference.
9: What?! Is this another Beastie Boys song? I told you I don't know those!
As for resonance, the OP title resonates, sure. The trees are still alive, though.
Does this mean I have to be nicer to people who sing to their plants? Because that would be annoying.
Who wants a world with very large people who sing to their plants?
So everyone here is so jaded that ordinary plants communicating with noise is nbd?
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2012/05/02/how-trees-communicate-video/
A listserv I get distributed this 5 weeks ago.
Scat singing makes them grow best.
To the OP: yes we'll carry on being cavalier about it. Pigs go "Oink", but a load of people still eat bacon.
I don't actually find it more remarkable in principle for plants to communicate by sound than for them to communicate by exhaling methyl jasminate. In both cases, they're doing something which causes conspecifics to do something else, which is not what we were formerly told. There's a huge research programme needed before we know how this works, and whether there's any element of choice in either emitting the stimulus or responding to it.
So, yes, fascinating; no, not going to change my life.
I'm going to taser any dog that dares to pee on the grass.
I don't actually find it more remarkable in principle for plants to communicate by sound than for them to communicate by exhaling methyl jasminate.
I do. I learned in high school about little cells in the plant emitting gases. I never heard about roots having enough motion to generate a sound.
I never heard about roots having enough motion to generate a sound.
Triffids.
OK, maybe they make a sound, but how do plants hear the sound? Why would plants communicate with sound?
I never heard about roots having enough motion to generate a sound.
Nor I until now. But I've heard about leaves having enough motion to trap an insect, so the principle of plant parts being able to move rapidly on occasion isn't new.
I am pretty sceptical because receiving and responding to chemical stimuli is easy, it's what cells do, but receiving sound takes specialist structures which it is not clear plants possess.
I would have to read the paper. It strikes me that the plants may be emitting sound, but as a side effect of some other signalling method.
But I've heard about leaves having enough motion to trap an insect, so the principle of plant parts being able to move rapidly on occasion isn't new.
Yes, there's nothing novel about Venus Fly traps, so it's boring that corn plant roots click.
We're incapable of feeling, heebie. We read your posts for the vicarious experience of "emotion," which is otherwise totally foreign to us.
If corn can talk, maybe that's who keeps promoting the paleo diet.
Halford is opposed to eating corn or feeding it to cows because he is corn.
No, not remotely boring, definitely mark it as one to watch; but very early days yet. And ajay and AWB identify some obvious possible issues right there, and AFAIK the whole area of plant behaviour is pretty underdeveloped. If I had some bright student ask me if they should do a doctorate in plant behaviour, right now I'd say, "What's your investment risk profile? Needs to be pretty high."
So, uh, why are you busting my chops over this?
Heebie should have cut off the fingers of one random commenter on her first day here. Now everyone knows she's weak and she gets threads like this. BTW I found this interesting.
35. Who me? I'm not. I agree it's interesting; I came in after a bunch of people had riffed off the funny because you were clearly not getting the kind of attention you wanted, so I tried to speculate about the context of thr finding because even this place would blench at speculating about the implications just yet.
Roald Dahl pwned on this topic nearly 60 years ago.
cut off the fingers of one random commenter
Dahl also pwned on the subject of finger amputation.
My takeaway is that James Cameron is right.
38: Nah, 17 was because the blog was dead this morning and I was trying to kick things up. 21 was because you misunderstood the post title.
Heebie should have cut off the fingers of one random commenter on her first day here.
You haven't noticed the commenter who always avoids words with Q, W, A, and Z in them?
Plant communication was a popular topic in those AMAZING BUT TRUE! books I used to buy from the Bookmobile.
38: even this place would blench at speculating about the implications just yet.
I'm not really following this: the implications of plants communicating? In all honesty, I don't find it that surprising. I've always assumed that all living beings communicate in their respective ways, though these are not necessarily ways that we can manage to wrap our heads around easily. If you told me that rocks communicate, I'd be blown away, I admit.
On the corn plant clicking, can the reception of (what we register as) sound be reception of the vibration? I tend to think of sound as vibration in any case. We obviously have an elaborate ear apparatus that translates this into what we call sound, but it's not clear to me that this this is essential. Isn't there something about elephants 'hearing' through their feet?
Chris Y is right in 21 that the element of choice, or intentionality, is central to whether we want to call it communication language. Actually I don't know whether there's been much doubt for a while about the (mere) communication: the shock would be over evidence for language-use.
On the corn plant clicking, can the reception of (what we register as) sound be reception of the vibration?
That's what I'd expect. I imagine it's how animals that don't have highly specialised hearing apparatus process vibrations that are in or close to (our) audible range as well.
You can have intentionality without language. If a bird makes an alarm call, most of the other birds in the flock fly away. Sometimes some don't, for whatever reason. The question with the corn is, do the vibrations cause the plant to grow towards the source by some weird epigenetic mechanism, or is this thing with no central nervous system receiving a stimulus and deciding to respond to it? Either option sounds close enough to magic to me, but forced to choose, I'd have to go with the first one.
You know what else doesn't have a nervous system? Neurons.
Furniture doesn't have a nervous system, which is why Ikea can sell it before it is assembled without causing it pain.
How do you know the furniture doesn't feel pain? Just because you can't hear it scream...
48: Similarly, a fried-brain sandwich doesn't have a nervous system.
You can have intentionality without language.
Right, true. I think I'm losing track of what's amazing about the corn clicking. I don't know why heebie thinks that's a jaded viewpoint.
As a hippie type, I hand-wavingly subscribe to the Gaia hypothesis (which doesn't involve intentionality) anyway: the entire planet is an integrated organism. It just depends on how you categorize things.
In somewhat connection with these matters, I've been wondering if essear or anyone else has feelings about the proposed unveiling of news about the Higgs Boson particle on July 4.
Unlike parsimon, I've arrived at this position not from any hippyish sentimentality, but from a rigorous application of reason. And I'm suspicious of intentionality, as it sounds no more well-defined or real than free will.
Are you opposing bosons or opposing proposing bosonian news unveiling?
Everybody needs a boson for a pillow.
53: Eggplant, if I weren't having lunch, I'd declare the need for a throwdown: there's nothing sentimental about my hippiedom, which is quite compatible with a rigorous application of reason.
It's true that I'm fond of natural materials, but that's my own business, and a matter of taste.
My own love of natural fibers kept me in cotton exercise clothes way too long. The artificial stuff is much better for anything involving sweat.
I meant more that I like textile wall hangings. Also a piece of driftwood on the wall -- which is awesome and casts terrific shadows in the evening, so I don't care what anyone thinks. That driftwood piece is taken down at the moment to make room for a new bookcase, but I sort of miss it, up there.
I'm not fond of textile wall hangings (unless we're talking tapestry) and strongly oppose driftwood used as decoration.
Uh-huh. I know your type. I suppose you kill little animals, too.
strongly oppose driftwood used as decoration
It seems okay from an ethical standpoint.
62: I give the animals little knives to make it fair.
Granted, they aren't much help against the can of Lysol and lighter, but still.
27: . . . Because corn has ears.
. . .
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Who ate all the pies? ROOOONEY!!!!!
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61: It's like you were never a little girl who went to summer camp!
I want to make macrame survival necklaces.
I am very much in favor of decorative wood.
Everyone, I assure you I have already thought of the jokes are you thinking of making regarding 71.
If trees had wings,
we'd call them branches.
Nosflow's in favor of decorative wood,
Hung on the wall, or wrapped in your hood.
But where once there was a silvery branch,
A bookshelf now stands, in parsimon's manse.
Those shadows it casted, in the glimmering gloam,
Have faded to memory, gone like the foam
Of a wavelet that lapped at the shore.
Those playful grey shadows now are no more.
Hey, so what is the post title a reference to? I don't get it either.
And the suitable reply would be: "We might, if they clicked all the time, for no reason."
If a tree falls alone in the forest, does it make a sound?
If a frog had wings, would it bump its ass on the ground when it hopped?
If a frog had wings, would it bump its ass on the ground when it hoped?, is what I initially read 78.2 as.
79: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSrXpFb7jFo
Hope is the frog-killer. Hope is the little death that brings total frogbliteration.
The Frog that can be killed is not the true Frog.
The thing that can be placed in the frame "The X that can be Yed is not the true X" is not the true thing.
I prefer functional wood myself.
52 In somewhat connection with these matters, I've been wondering if essear or anyone else has feelings about the proposed unveiling of news about the Higgs Boson particle on July 4.
Oh, I have so many feelings. Also thoughts. Also last night I had a not-very-sense-making dream about the Higgs boson and dark matter.
I'm kind of surprised it has enough publicity that anyone here knows about it. They only made that announcement on Friday, I think? But yeah, lots of feelings. Mostly confusion.
TPM did a piece on it, which is presumably where people here heard about it. It's certainly where I did.
88: Well, when the time comes, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and feelings.
89: Tom Levenson at Balloon Juice had a post on it.
TPM is Theoretical Physics Monthly.
And of course they link to the blog "debate" and resulting NY Times article. I like how anything discussed in physics blogs automatically becomes real news, even if it's just someone sort of randomly throwing a hissy fit for no good reason. And the post they quote from S/th seems slightly disingenuous to me, since, as he says, they did open the box the previous Friday, so even if they don't know the final results yet they certainly have some information that they're keeping secret.
Hopefully after the actual announcement people will start talking about physics instead of physicists....
To be clear, the person who threw the hissy fit wasn't S/th but some other physicist turned blogger who shares my first name.
Levenson's post links to the TPM piece, although it's clear from the content of the post that that's probably not where he first heard about it.
And who, per 90.2, is apparently a friend of Tom Levenson. Small world.
Is there any chance of an experiment that will result in the end of the universe?
Or, wait, at the end he says in a footnote that that is where he first saw it.
95: I asked for your thoughts because I like a larger world. Those of us who haven't a clue are interested in the physics. I need a translator, though.
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Ahem. As I said, England will not beat Italy.
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This is the best result (well, not the overtime and penalty kicks, but the win). For one thing, England was simply not good enough to advance. For another, we will now have the edifying spectacle of the maladetto Abruzzi being trounced by Germany.
100: maybe. I think Germany's still due an off day.
Nu! Not with my adorable consumptive Özil in the front!
Late to the party, but this was surprising and cool. Seriously, if you're unsurprised by this it can only be because you believe some generic and squishy thing along the lines of "Oh, well, of course everything in nature talks." Whereas my priors are more along the lines of "No it doesn't, hippie."
Anyway, to AWB and ajay's questions, plants may be using mechanoreceptors to pick up sounds. Soil is a pretty good conductor of vibrations and very small structures can pick them up. (You don't need ears to hear, as mosquitos and snakes show.) Seems to be a functional signal for the receiver, though what the sender is doing with it, if anything, isn't clear yet.
Stony: Do you think I'd crush a grape to make a sip of wine for my own personal pleasure? But take one live juicy living veal. Ground it into a fluid. Ferment it. Two or three days. Perfect. Grape wine takes years. Why? The grape is fighting off death. The grape wants to live. But animals want to die. If we don't kill them, they think we're bored with them. Not being killed is the same as not being noticed. They die from boredom.
Tom: An interesting theory.
Stony: Theory? You call scientific fact theory? It's mankind's problem in a nutshell. We never go far enough. We have to keep pushing ourselves further and further to recognizing the needs of others. I recognize the needs of the grape. The grape wants to live. The veal wants to die. Why should I stand in the way of the veal? Deny the grape. So locked off from life with your peace work. Don't you know anything? Next life around, I'm coming back as a vegetable researcher. I'm committed to being an artist in this life. But one feels so inadequate when I compare the work I'm doing to the work they're doing on vegetables. Have you ever heard the cries of the asparagus? Granted, zucchinis are dumb. But radishes are brilliant. If we could just break the code... All the money wasted trying to break the language of the dolphin. They finally do. What are the dolphins saying to us? These high, reedy, squeaky voices singing: "Sun goes down, tide goes out, darkies gather round and dey all begin to shout." I have no sympathy for mammals. Meat can run away. Meat has wings. Meat has hooves. Meat can escape. Meat can change. Meat can die. Meat wants to die. But plants have roots. Plants are trapped. Plants are dependent. Plants know about survival. Plants have to stay there.
from John Guare's Marco Polo Sings a Solo
For another, we will now have the edifying spectacle of the maladetto Abruzzi being trounced by Germany.
And another game of Pirlo's magnificent flowing locks.
OT: Jamie Lee Curtis and the guy who played Boss Hogg. That was quite the Columbo.
107: Congratulations, you've just caught up with me!
"the proposed unveiling of news about the Higgs Boson particle on July 4."
Given the date, I trust you will all be celebrating with a Boson Tea Party.
Anyway, to AWB and ajay's questions, plants may be using mechanoreceptors to pick up sounds. Soil is a pretty good conductor of vibrations and very small structures can pick them up. (You don't need ears to hear, as mosquitos and snakes show.) Seems to be a functional signal for the receiver, though what the sender is doing with it, if anything, isn't clear yet.
I suppose it's possible, but I'd like to see the histology. Pressure receptors are one thing, detectors of high-frequency noise are quite another. I'm not aware of any organism that has high-frequency noise detection without neurons. Are there vibrotactic (?) protozoa?
Pressure receptors are one thing, detectors of high-frequency noise are quite another.
In principle I suppose you could have a pressure receptor that detected 200 Hz vibrations. But it'd be almost as impressive as a plant with neurons.
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NMM to "Life in Hell", apparently. (Don't worry; you can keep flogging it to Matt Groening, but he's stopped writing the strip.)
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Sullivan: The Greece-German soccer game sure beats another actual war:
"Without Angie, you wouldn't be here," bellowed the German fans, referring to the multibillion-dollar bailouts Greece has received from European partners, first and foremost Germany. "We'll never pay you back," countered the Greeks. "We'll never pay you back."
Sometimes the soccer/war distinction gets hard.
@114
That game was on in the pub where I was having dinner and I was surprised at how partisan I became hoping that Greece would stomp Germany.
No such luck, however...
So the cornstalk hears the message:
click CLICK click
What's that?
The thresher is moving in this direction?
Thanks for the warning, Joe, I'll get out of the way.
Oh, shit
[In its last moments on earth, Cornstalk contemplates the limited utility of communications among cretures with deep roots and no means of locomotion.]
117: It's not too hard to think of messages that could be useful for a plant to know long-term, so as to extend itself or drop seeds in an advantageous direction:
The soil here is not good.
The soil here is good.
I seem to have encountered a cliff.
Lots of rocks over here.
My light is being blocked.
Ooh, I see a clearing! Lots of sunlight!
On the veldt, plants did not have to deal with threshers.
118. The paper quoted says that when they played a 200Hz signal at it, the corn grew in the direction of the source. So the long term effect might be to make the corn grow in tightly clumped stands (on the veldt), which could give it a defensive advantage against predators, like shoaling in fish.
Speculate, speculate.