Science Memes

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the sensory biology of plants (mander.xyz)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] jeremyparker 35 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Y'all mf'ers need to read The Secret Life of Plants. It's fascinating.

It's from the 1970s or 80s, and it talks about this stuff in extreme depth - plant communication, plants understanding their environment... Long range communication & telepathic plants...

You gotta understand, there's absolutely zero science to it -- TSLoP is richly detailed with unconfirmed anecdotal evidence, some lady said this, a man from Tucson said this other thing, etc. If it was real, it would be world changing, but, at this point, it's a pretty crazy claim that would need some pretty crazy evidence.

But it's still fascinating -- both from it's own kayfabe, like, imagine a world in which this was real -- and in terms of "conspiracy theories" -- is not a conspiracy but it's clear bullshit so the who and why of it's believers is interesting. Because it's not like most conspiracies, which usually eventually lead back to antisemitic and Christian supremacist stuff. TSLoP is a legit leftist conspiracy, all its own thing.

So, if you see The Secret Life of Plants at a used bookstore for a couple dollars, pick it up, it's really neat.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The mycorrhizal networks are a real phenomenon, and as recently as 2016 were confirmed to share resources between trees.

Researchers exposed certain trees to a specific carbon isotope and found their unfed neighbors were processing that specific isotope despite not being exposed.

We've also found that many plants generate interacting electrical fields that help promote pollination and may indicate to pollinators which plants are ready to be harvested.

We've also found, by sequencing fungal DNA, that mother trees do have a resource sharing preference for their direct offspring.

We don't have hard evidence for direct communication between trees, in the sense that we don't speak tree. We do have hard evidence that they share resources, have preferences, express pain signals externally and other plants react, and can indicate information to other species.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Thank you for taking the time to comment in this thread.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

A few years ago, a group of giraffes were placed in a field surrounded by enough acacia trees to ensure their food, but after a short time the giraffes began to get sick. The cause is the acacias. These, when the giraffe eats its shoots, releases a toxic substance to the other shoots that makes them toxic and also sends signals to the surrounding acacias that also make them toxic. The giraffes, therefore, in freedom, after eating from an acacia, move to others of several km to continue in these, but this in an enclosure was not possible.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

This comment is the definition of joie de vivre.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Thanks for the tip, I’ll keep an eye out for it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I like this comment for many reasons, but I'll mention just that I have never heard the word "kayfabe" until today and I love it!

[–] jeremyparker 1 points 8 months ago

I hadn't heard it either until FD Signifier used it in a video. I guess it originally referred to the "in universe" fiction of professional wrestling, but FD took it out of that context and now I use it all the time -- well, it doesn't come up that often, but it's a concept that's needed a word for a while now... Especially now that "alternative facts" are becoming so prevalent.