radiolab smarty plants

ROBERT: All right, that's it, I think. JAD: Yes. MONICA GAGLIANO: Like a defensive mechanism. And so I don't have a problem with that. They stopped folding up. And it was almost like, let's see how much I have to stretch it here before you forget. Testing one, two. Pics! They will send out a "Oh, no! So what they're saying is even if she's totally sealed the pipe so there's no leak at all, the difference in temperature will create some condensation on the outside. These guys are actually doing it." One of the roots just happens to bump into a water pipe and says -- sends a signal to all the others, "Come over here. Pics! This is not so good" signal through the network. JENNIFER FRAZER: Then he would bring them the meat and he would ring a bell. JENNIFER FRAZER: And the fungus actually builds a tunnel inside the rock. And I remember it was Sunday, because I started screaming in my lab. If a nosy deer happens to bump into it, the mimosa plant Curls all its leaves up against its stem. ROBERT: You don't know what your dog was? Truth is, I think on this point she's got a -- she's right. No. JENNIFER FRAZER: It's definitely crazy. [laughs]. JENNIFER FRAZER: I am the blogger of The Artful Amoeba at Scientific American. JENNIFER FRAZER: So what do we have in our ears that we use to hear sound? So he brought them some meat. You know, one of those little jeweler's glasses? I mean, can you remember what you were doing a month ago? JENNIFER FRAZER: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think there's something to that. Enough of that! Monica thought about that and designed a different experiment. And when you look at the map, what you see are circles sprouting lines and then connecting to other circles also sprouting lines. MONICA GAGLIANO: Like a defensive mechanism. LARRY UBELL: Good. JENNIFER FRAZER: Minerals from the soil. They can go north, south, east, west, whatever. Remember that the roots of these plants can either go one direction towards the sound of water in a pipe, or the other direction to the sound of silence. Like the bell for the dog. So she's got her plants in the pot, and we're going to now wait to see what happens. And so we, you know, we've identified these as kind of like hubs in the network. JAD: What exchange would that be, Robert? I'll put it down in my fungi. No, Summer is a real person and her last name happens to be spelled R-A-Y-N-E. ROBERT: This story was nurtured and fed and ultimately produced by Annie McEwen. ROBERT: Huh. But I wonder if her using these metaphors is perhaps a very creative way of looking at -- looking at a plant, and therefore leads her to make -- make up these experiments that those who wouldn't think the way she would would ever make up. It was like, Oh, I might disturb my plants!" So the -- this branching pot thing. That is correct. ROBERT: A little while back, I had a rather boisterous conversation with these two guys. I'm 84. And with these two stimuli, she put the plants, the little pea plants through a kind of training regime. Smarty Plants--My Latest Guest Spot for Radiolab - Scientific American Blog Network COVID Health Mind & Brain Environment Technology Space & Physics Video Podcasts Opinion Store Knowledge within. LARRY UBELL: That -- that's -- that's interesting. So Monica moves the fans to a new place one more time. Same as the Pavlov. LARRY UBELL: It's kind of like a cold glass sitting on your desk, and there's always a puddle at the bottom. Have you hugged your houseplant today? Her use of metaphor. But it was originally done with -- with a dog. ROBERT: Is your dog objecting to my analysis? And when I came on the scene in 19 -- the 1980s as a forester, we were into industrial, large-scale clear-cutting in western Canada. JAD: And is it as dramatic in the opposite direction? You have to understand that the cold water pipe causes even a small amount of water to condense on the pipe itself. Or it's just the vibration of the pipe that's making it go toward it. ], [ALVIN UBELL: And Alvin Ubell. And she says this time they relaxed almost immediately. What is it? Image credits: Photo Credit: Flickred! Crossposted by 4 years ago. I go out and I thought there's no one here on Sunday afternoon. SUZANNE SIMARD: They start producing chemicals that taste really bad. ], This is Jennifer Frazer, and I'm a freelance science writer and blogger of The Artful Amoeba at Scientific American. Special thanks to Dr. Teresa Ryan of the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Forestry, to our intern Stephanie Tam, to Roy Halling and the Bronx Botanical Garden, and to Stephenson Swanson there. This way there is often more questions than answers, but that's part of the fun as well. ROBERT: Connecting your house to the main city water line that's in the middle of the street. And after not a whole lot of drops the plant, she noticed, stopped closing its leaves. We showed one of these plants to him and to a couple of his colleagues, Sharon De La Cruz ROBERT: Because we wanted them to help us recreate Monica's next experiment. I don't know where you were that day. Turns the fan on, turns the light on, and the plant turns and leans that way. So she decided to conduct her experiment. Oh, one more thing. Or No. These guys are actually doing it." MONICA GAGLIANO: Picasso, enough of that now. JAD: If a plant doesn't have a brain what is choosing where to go? ROBERT: Yeah. PETER LANDGREN: Little seatbelt for him for the ride down. Or even learn? They curve, sometimes they branch. I mean, I think there's something to that. SUZANNE SIMARD: Yes, we don't normally ascribe intelligence to plants, and plants are not thought to have brains. It was like, "Oh, I might disturb my plants!" Monica thought about that and designed a different experiment. Okay. Yours is back of your house, but let's make it in the front. And might as well start the story back when she was a little girl. How much longer? And again. We were so inconsistent, so clumsy, that the plants were smart to keep playing it safe and closing themselves up. I mean, it's just -- it's reacting to things and there's a series of mechanical behaviors inside the plant that are just bending it in the direction. Sorry! It turns that carbon into sugar, which it uses to make its trunk and its branches, anything thick you see on a tree is just basically air made into stuff. Pics! And for the meat substitute, she gave each plant little bit of food. Actually, Monica's dog leads perfectly into her third experiment, which again will be with a plant. So we are going to meet a beautiful little plant called a mimosa pudica, which is a perfectly symmetrical plant with leaves on either side of a central stem. But Monica says what she does do is move around the world with a general feeling of What if? ROBERT: By the way, should we establish -- is it a fact that you're ALVIN UBELL: He's on the right track. ROBERT: I have even -- I can go better than even that. ROBERT: That's a -- learning is something I didn't think plants could do. JAD: That apparently -- jury's still out. They may have this intelligence, maybe we're just not smart enough yet to figure it out. Just the sound of it? ROBERT: So they followed the sound of the barking and it leads them to an outhouse. Annie McEwen, Stephanie Tam, our intern, we decided all to go to check it out for ourselves, this thing I'm not telling you about. ROBERT: So I think what she would argue is that we kind of proved her point. One time, the plant literally flew out of the pot and upended with roots exposed. Fan first, light after. That would be sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals. Ring, meat, eat. Actually, Monica's dog leads perfectly into her third experiment, which again will be with a plant. But what -- how would a plant hear something? ALVIN UBELL: The glass is not broken. [laughs] When I write a blog post, my posts that get the least traffic guaranteed are the plant posts. JENNIFER FRAZER: Yeah. It's 10 o'clock and I have to go. It spits out the O2. ROBERT: Give it to the new -- well, that's what she saying. That is actually a clue in what turns out to be a deep, deep mystery. So I don't have an issue with that. And not too far away from this tree, underground, there is a water pipe. Because what she does next is three days later, she takes these plants back into the lab. Smarty Plants. Was it possible that maybe the plants correctly responded by not opening, because something really mad was happening around it and it's like, "This place is not safe.". And all of a sudden, one of them says, "Oh, oh, oh, oh! So it's predicting something to arrive. It's condensation. Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, we turn our brain-centered worldview on its head through a series of clever experiments that show plants doing things we never would've imagined. LINCOLN TAIZ: Yes. ROBERT: So you're like a metaphor cop with a melty heart. Which by the way, is definitely not a plant. WHRO is Hampton Roads' local NPR / PBS Station. If you get too wrapped up in your poetic metaphor, you're very likely to be misled and to over-interpret the data. It didn't seem to be learning anything. Hobbled, really. Each one an ounce, an ounce, an ounce, an ounce, an ounce. SUZANNE SIMARD: Yeah, he was a curious dog. ROBERT: But after five days, she found that 80% of the time, the plants went -- or maybe chose -- to head toward the dry pipe that has water in it. Yeah. And you don't see it anywhere. ROBERT: So it's not that it couldn't fold up, it's just that during the dropping, it learned that it didn't need to. The glass is not broken. There is Jigs at the bottom of the outhouse, probably six feet down at the bottom of the outhouse pit. SUZANNE SIMARD: He was a, not a wiener dog. Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, we turn our brain-centered worldview on its head through a series of clever experiments that show plants doing things we never would've imagined. ROBERT: Smaller than an eyelash. Would you say that the plant is seeing the sun? Then we actually had to run four months of trials to make sure that, you know, that what we were seeing was not one pea doing it or two peas, but it was actually a majority. The water is still in there. If a plant doesn't have a brain what is choosing where to go? SUZANNE SIMARD: Not a basset hound, but he was a beagle. Don't interrupt. ROBERT: So we strapped in our mimosa plant. So that's where these -- the scientists from Princeton come in: Peter, Sharon and Aatish. And all of a sudden, one of them says, "Oh, oh, oh, oh! So you can -- you can see this is like a game of telephone. And then someone has to count. So today we have a triptych of experiments about plants. So she takes the plants, she puts them into the parachute drop, she drops them. JAD: So you couldn't replicate what she saw. And the tree happens to be a weeping willow. Whatever. Radiolab - Smarty Plants . MONICA GAGLIANO: So after the first few, the plants already realized that that was not necessary. "I'm under attack!". And we can move it up, and we can drop it. I guess you could call it a mimosa plant drop box. They curve, sometimes they branch. So they can't move. I can scream my head off if I want to. JAD: So they just went right for the MP3 fake water, not even the actual water? She says what will happen under the ground is that the fungal tubes will stretch up toward the tree roots, and then they'll tell the tree With their chemical language. Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. They're all out in the forest. Could a plant learn to associate something totally random like a bell with something it wanted, like food? They still did not close when she dropped them. ROBERT: Connecting your house to the main city water line that's in the middle of the street. These guys are actually doing it." Nothing happened at all. There are multiple ways of doing one thing, right? JAD: Where would the -- a little plant even store a memory? Well, I have one thing just out of curiosity ROBERT: As we were winding up with our home inspectors, Alvin and Larry Ubell, we thought maybe we should run this metaphor idea by them. They remembered what had happened three days before, that dropping didn't hurt, that they didn't have to fold up. I thought -- I thought tree roots just sort of did -- like, I thought -- I always imagined tree roots were kind of like straws. ROBERT: And we dropped it once and twice. I mean, couldn't it just be like that? Are you bringing the plant parade again? But now we know, after having looked at their DNA, that fungi are actually very closely related to animals. And is it as dramatic in the opposite direction? JENNIFER FRAZER: The whole thing immediately closes up and makes it look like, "Oh, there's no plant here. But it was originally done with -- with a dog. And the tubes branch and sometimes they reconnect. ROBERT: All right, that's it, I think. And we were all like, "Oh, my goodness! If a plant doesn't have a brain what is choosing where to go? Because if I let you go it's gonna be another 20 minutes until I get to talk. On one side, instead of the pipe with water, she attaches an MP3 player with a little speaker playing a recording of ROBERT: And then on the other side, Monica has another MP3 player with a speaker. ROBERT: So the deer's like, "Oh, well. Imagine towering trees to your left and to your right. So you are related and you're both in the plumbing business? She went into the forest, got some trees. He's on the right track. MONICA GAGLIANO: Like for example, my plants were all in environment-controlled rooms, which is not a minor detail. JENNIFER FRAZER: Apparently, she built some sort of apparatus. So the plants are now, you know, buckled in, minding their own business. It's okay. ROBERT: Well of course, there could be a whole -- any number of reasons why, you know, one tree's affected by another. So Monica moves the fans to a new place one more time. Nothing delicious at all.". There was some kind of benefit from the birch to the fur. Of the tree's sugar goes down to the mushroom team? MONICA GAGLIANO: Like for example, my plants were all in environment-controlled rooms, which is not a minor detail. ROBERT: Sounds, yeah. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.]. ROBERT: And on this particular day, she's with the whole family. Just a boring set of twigs. So no plants were actually hurt in this experiment. A plant that is quite far away from the actual pipe. Today, Robert drags Jad along ona parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. Or it's just the vibration of the pipe that's making it go toward it. ROBERT: She found that the one stimulus that would be perfect was MONICA GAGLIANO: A little fan. ROBERT: Isn't that what you do? Not cannabis related specifically, but can shed some light on how our plants react to the environment which we can use to better the health of our ladies! JENNIFER FRAZER: Anyone who's ever had a plant in a window knows that. JAD: Well, okay. It's kind of like a cold glass sitting on your desk, and there's always a puddle at the bottom. It was summertime. So I don't have a problem. And the pea plant leans toward them. I mean, I see the dirt. Read about Smarty Plants by Radiolab and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. She's not gonna use hot water because you don't want to cook your plants, you know? ROBERT: Well, let us say you have a yard in front of your house. ], Our staff includes Simon Adler, Brenna Farrow, David Gebel. Yeah, plants really like light, you know? What -- I forgot to ask you something important. ALVIN UBELL: And the tree happens to be a weeping willow. The glass is not broken. It's almost as if these plants -- it's almost as if they know where our pipes are. JENNIFER FRAZER: Yeah, it might run out of fuel. Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. So they can't move. ANNIE: But I wonder if her using these metaphors ANNIE: is perhaps a very creative way of looking at -- looking at a plant, and therefore leads her to make -- make up these experiments that those who wouldn't think the way she would would ever make up. Same as the Pavlov. Why is this network even there? So she's saying they remembered for almost a month? Did Jigs emerge? SUZANNE SIMARD: It's just this incredible communications network that, you know, people had no idea about in the past, because we couldn't -- didn't know how to look. So just give me some birds. It's as if the individual trees were somehow thinking ahead to the needs of the whole forest. And then I needed to -- the difficulty I guess, of the experiment was to find something that will be quite irrelevant and really meant nothing to the plant to start with. ROBERT: And we saw this in the Bronx. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. She says it was like this moment where she realizes, "Oh, my God! It's almost as if these plants -- it's almost as if they know where our pipes are. ROBERT: And that's just the beginning. ROBERT: And the salivation equivalent was the tilt of the plant? So for three days, three times a day, she would shine these little blue lights on the plants. [laughs] When I write a blog post, my posts that get the least traffic guaranteed are the plant posts. Couldn't it just be an entirely different interpretation here? They designed from scratch a towering parachute drop in blue translucent Lego pieces. Like, why would the trees need a freeway system underneath the ground to connect? JAD: That is cool. MONICA GAGLIANO: Well, I created these horrible contraptions. We dropped. And then Monica would Just about, you know, seven or eight inches. But what I do know is that the fact that the plant doesn't have a brain doesn't -- doesn't a priori say that the plants can't do something. ROBERT: We, as you know, built your elevator. ROBERT: Again, science writer Jennifer Frazer. 2016. It involves a completely separate organism I haven't mentioned yet. The fact that humans do it in a particular way, it doesn't mean that everyone needs to do it in that way to be able to do it in the first place. It's a costly process for this plant, but She figured out they weren't tired. On one side, instead of the pipe with water, she attaches an MP3 player with a little speaker playing a recording of ROBERT: And then on the other side, Monica has another MP3 player with a speaker. ROBERT: Now that's a very, you know, animals do this experiment, but it got Monica thinking. Well of course, there could be a whole -- any number of reasons why, you know, one tree's affected by another. Well, I have one thing just out of curiosity As we were winding up with our home inspectors, Alvin and Larry Ubell, we thought maybe we should run this metaphor idea by them. JAD: The plants have to keep pulling their leaves up and they just get tired. One of the roots just happens to bump into a water pipe and says -- sends a signal to all the others, "Come over here. ROBERT: And she goes into that darkened room with all the pea plants. And when you measure them, like one study we saw found up to seven miles of this little threading What is this thing? Apparently she built some sort of apparatus. I know. And while it took us a while to see it, apparently these little threads in the soil. Kind of even like, could there be a brain, or could there be ears or, you know, just sort of like going off the deep end there. So no plants were actually hurt in this experiment. ROBERT: I don't know why you have problems with this. MONICA GAGLIANO: All of them know already what to do. 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