WEBVTT - Plant Memories, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.920 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.880 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.759 today we're gonna be talking about an interesting and perhaps 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:26.200 hidden property of plants. And to start us off, I 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.200 wanted to read a selection from one of the lesser 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.839 known works by the English romantic poet Percy Biss Shelley. Uh, 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.559 this is a poem called the Sensitive Plant. Rob Am, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.159 I write that you've never heard of this one before. No, 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:41.320 you know, obviously I've I've read a little bit of 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.640 Shelley here and there, but this this must I'm assuming 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:47.640 this is a deeper cut. It is. I think it 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.480 was one of the final things he wrote before his death, 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.120 So this would have been I think sometimes in the 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.920 early eighteen twenties. Um, and it was published I believe 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.720 as a standalone work at least at some point it was. 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.120 I was reading through like a book version of it 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:04.759 on that have been scanned into Google books, and every 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.280 other page on it was like washed out on the scan. 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:11.160 So so that was beautiful. But um, yeah, this one's 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.560 kind of weird. It's it's not one of his best poems, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.200 but it has some really great lines in it, so 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.920 I just wanted to read, uh, just a selection from it. 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:20.800 It's too long to read in full, but this is 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.319 an exerpt from the end of part one of The 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:28.039 Sensitive Plant by Percy Miss Shelley. For the Sensitive Plant 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.960 has no bright flower, radiance and odor or not its dour. 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.720 It loves even like love. Its deep heart is full. 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:40.440 It desires what it has not the beautiful, the light winds, 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.880 which from unsustaining wings shed the music of many murmurings, 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.760 the beams which dart from many a star of the flowers, 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:53.400 whose hues they bear afar, the plumid insects, swift and free, 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.880 like golden boats on a sunny sea, laden with light 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.400 and odor, which pass over the gleam of the living grass, 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:04.360 The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie like fire, 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.720 and the flowers till the sun rides high, then wander 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.400 like spirits among the spheres, each cloud faint with the 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:16.280 fragrance it bears. The quivering vapors of dim noontide, which 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.520 like a sea over the warm earth, glide in which 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.160 every sound and odor and beam move as reads in 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.320 a single stream. Each and all like ministering angels, were 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:31.120 for the sensitive plant, sweet joy to bear, whilst the 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.600 lagging hours of the day went by like windless clouds 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.880 over a tender sky, And when evening descended from heaven above, 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.560 and the earth was all rest, and the air was 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.560 all love and delight, though less bright was far more deep, 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.720 and the day's veil fell from the world of sleep, 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.560 and the beasts and the birds and the insects were 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.360 drowned in an ocean of dreams without a sound, whose 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.959 waves never mark, though they ever impressed the light sand 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:04.520 which paves it consciousness only overhead. The sweet Nightingale, ever, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.079 sang more sweet as the day might fail, and snatches 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.560 of its elazy enchant were mixed with the dreams of 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:16.000 the sensitive plant. Very nice. Yeah, so I don't think 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:17.920 it's one of Percy's best poems. Like I was saying, 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.400 the rhythm is a little too regular and sing songy. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:22.640 Sometimes some of the rhymes are a little obvious, you know, 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.239 the rhyming love with above and all that. You could 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.440 you could imagine like a an eighties rat bait thrown 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.720 in the background some of those, or this could be 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:33.920 a song like every rose has its thorn, you know, 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:37.960 monster ballad. But but there are also lines that really 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.840 love the dew which lies like fire, and the flowers 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.800 and the nighttime as a as an ocean paved under 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:48.240 with the sands of consciousness. But it's aesthetic qualities aside. 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:52.280 I think it's really interesting that Percy is suggesting in 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.520 his unorthodox and emotionally charged for you of the world, 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.320 that this particular plant, the sensitive plant, which is a 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.880 species of plant, may somehow have a kind of humanity 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:05.880 of its own, like a soul or a mind, or 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.400 as I believe he implies later in the poem, and afterlife. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.120 So you might wonder why would he say that about 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.560 this species of plant, which he acknowledges is not a 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.680 particularly beautiful flower. It's it's a mimosa, so it's got 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:22.520 a little pink puffball kind of thing. Well, I think 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:26.279 the answer is actually tied to some of the biological 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.120 qualities of the sensitive plant as a species. So the 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.280 sensitive plant is one of the many names of Mimosa pudica, 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:39.240 pudica being Latin for chaste or modest, shamefaced or bashful. 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.120 And this is a flowering plant in the family Fabasi, 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.920 which is the pa or legume family, which means, yes, 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.880 this plant is a cousin of the common being. So 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.520 we are we are dealing in being can today, we're 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.760 getting into into supernatural territory then, oh boy. Mimosa pudica 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.719 is native to South and Central America and the Caribbean, 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.720 though since transatlantic contact it has spread to all other 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.719 parts of the world. I think it's pervasive throughout the tropics. 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.080 And it's also known by by tons of different names. 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.719 It's called the humble plant, the shame plant, that touch 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.800 me not, and all of these names connect to the 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.120 most striking feature of this species, which is that it 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:26.160 is a plant that recoils when touched. And this is 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.320 one of a handful of examples of rapid movement in 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.600 the plant kingdom, movement on the time scale that we 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.120 would normally associate only with animals. So, if you want 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.920 to picture it, the sensitive plant is a spiny little 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.000 shrub that grows up to about a foot off the ground. 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:46.280 It has these pink flower puffs and small forking branches 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.839 with compound leaves. So to picture the leaves of this plant, 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:53.760 they are the ones that kind of like a feather, 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.280 you know, with a stalk running up the middle, and 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.160 then lots of tiny, little opinionle leaflets shooting out from 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.440 that middle stalk, parallel to each other and perpendicular to 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:05.760 the stalk like the teeth of a comb, or like 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.520 the barbs of a feather. And to see the sensitive 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.520 plant in action, all you need to do is touch 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.640 a finger on one of these branches and suddenly what 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:20.680 happens is the leaflets all fold inward like a closing suitcase. 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.240 And then sometimes even the branch or the stalk that 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.200 they're on will droop away from the stimulus, will droop down. 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.000 From what I can tell, there is not yet a 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:36.479 full consensus on the main function of the shrinking behavior 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.440 in the wild, like why does it do that? But 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.920 botanists have long suspected that it's some kind of defensive 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.640 action by the plant to protect its leaves from grazing 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.359 herbivores or insects. And this can actually work in multiple ways. 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.160 So one of them is that maybe it works by 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.200 physically moving the leaves away from a grazer. You know, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.560 something comes bides it's munching the leaves, and this causes 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.040 the leaves to kind of pull away from the mouth 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.360 or it could work by hiding the leaves so you know, 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.040 it is disturbed something is around, it might be trying 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.560 to eat the plant, and by closing up it makes 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.360 it less obvious where the leaves are. Yeah, and I 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.200 guess one can imagine this working within the context of, 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.800 you know, of an enormous grazing animal that is eating 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.760 a lot of plants and it's maybe not gonna stop 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.360 to really get particular about this one, if this one 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:34.120 has made itself uh smaller, you know, retreated into you know, 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.240 amidst other plants, etcetera. Like, it's just gonna keep eating 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.640 whatever is readily available to eat, Right, But I think 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.840 there's also a focus on insects. Maybe insects are also 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.320 the reason it does this, And it could also work 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.400 maybe by startling a predator like an insect or grazing 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:53.680 her before. Because of course plants don't usually move rapidly 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.480 like animals do, so you know, if you're an insect 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.360 or whatever that's grazing and then suddenly there is movement 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.480 on the time scale of animal movement in your in 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.280 your vicinity that might startle you and send you on 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.120 the run. Yeah, on the time scale of animal movement. 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.960 That's that's key because of course, the other main plant 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.119 we think of in terms of this is the venus 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.360 fly plant, which you know, well we'll come back to 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:18.920 uh that you know, that is a plant that is 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:24.000 acting aggressively on the timescale of of of animals um 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.080 in an attempt to capture a set animal. But but 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.320 here we see the reverse. Here we see something that 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.360 is uh that is acting you know, defensively, that is 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.200 moving away from us, that is not saying I want 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.520 to touch you and envelop you, but I would rather 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:39.520 not touch you at all. Yes, I would rather not. 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.120 I would prefer not to. Yeah. Uh. So usually after 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.720 a sensitive plant closes up its leaflets and droops away, 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.400 it will reopen within some short time period, maybe only 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.679 a few seconds, uh sometimes a few minutes, but it 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.800 doesn't take long. It'll it'll open back up, get those 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.480 leaves out there again, and and and start all over. 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.880 And the sensitive plant also has a circadian rhythm to 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.520 its closure, because it will close its leaves in the 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.839 darkness and then reopen them in the daylight. Now, I 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.120 found a wonderful post on j Store Daily by Rebecca 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.400 Friedel about the history of mimosa putica, and also a 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:23.360 similar Old World plant called Biophytem sensitivum, which is actually 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.800 not a close relative of the sensitive plant, but does 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.120 almost exactly the same thing with its leaves. So it 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.840 looks like this would be a case of convergent evolution. 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.920 But this article points to the work of a sixteenth 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.760 century Portuguese naturalist living in India named Cristo baal Acosta, 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.679 who authored a book in fifteen seventy eight called Tractado 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:49.199 de las Drogas e Metaicinas de las Indias Orientales or 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.520 treat Us on the Drugs and Medicines of the East 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.720 and East Indies. I really wanted to find an English 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.000 translation of this so I could quote it directly, because 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.679 it sounds like it's a hoot, But I could not, 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:01.319 so I'm gonna have to rely on a couple of 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.920 secondhand summaries, including a Friedel's article here. But anyway, in 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.640 this book by Christo ball Acosta in the sixteenth century, 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.120 he describes a plant among the medicinal herbs of India 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.800 called the Yerba della more or the herb the herb 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.120 of love. Do you do you ever say herb with 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.120 the H pronounced sometimes I'm afraid I'm gonna keep doing that. Yeah, 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.160 sometimes it slips out. I don't know why. I try 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.679 to fix this in my brain by like saying the 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.280 name herb without the H pronounced so like I I go, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:38.400 I I said herb Herbert Hoover, Herbert Hoover. That that'll 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:40.240 fix it. Well, yeah, I mean it's easy to fall 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.680 into because herbivore, herbivoret. Anyway, why the herb of love? 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:46.800 Why would it be called the herb of love? Well, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.599 Acosta says that, according to an Indian physician he talked to, 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.199 the herb of Love was a potent seduction drug with 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:59.960 a one percent success rate never fails. And after this passage, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.120 Acosta has an aside to assure readers of this medicinal 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.319 catalog that he definitely never personally tried to use the 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.200 sex herb, never, not once. Probably a good thing, considering 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.280 that other more well known sex aerbs, if you will, 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.760 are you know, essentially poisons right, But aside from the 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:22.439 dubious allegations about cupids ero type powers, this plant, the 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.840 herb of Love is remarkable for its ability to close 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.800 its leaves rapidly, moving at the speed of an animal 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.280 recoiling from a needle prick, and uh, I was looking 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.959 at another source which mentions Acosta. This is by JF. 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.440 Veld Camp called Notes on biophytem of the Old World, 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.000 polished in tax On in ninety nine. I cite this 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.720 just because veld Camp tells the story that Acosta claimed 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.199 he knew of a philosopher in Malabar, so region along 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:55.640 the southwest coast of India. A philosopher who lived in 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.719 Malabar who was so tortured by the mystery of the 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.199 of Love's rapid movement that he literally lost his mind 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:05.680 trying to study it. He was like, how does it move? 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.160 And and that was that was it for him. No 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.959 word on whether that guy ever used it for cupid 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.439 zero type purposes. Yeah. Because again, and this will be 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.000 something that we'll just we'll discuss later as well. I mean, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.599 it's it's acting in a way that other plants do 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.599 not act. It seems unnatural, right. I mean if I 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.199 had never seen a rapidly moving plant before and I 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.400 just like stumbled across one of these in the wild, 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.800 saw it folding up like that, I would be freaked out. 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:32.920 I don't know what to think of this. I mean, 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:36.079 it's hard to imagine because I grew up with venus 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.679 fly traps, you know, Like I remember when I was 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.439 a kid, and uh, I would have like one of 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.280 those really boring weekend days where my mom wanted to 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.559 go to the plant nursery and get some plants around 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.559 the house. And I think my consolation there was that 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.360 a couple of times I got a little pott of 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.400 venus fly trap. Yeah, they're they're pretty fun little plants. 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.600 They always have a huge container off them out at 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.559 the UH at the Botanical Garden in Atlanta for the 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.000 kids to interact with an inevitably stick a little sticks 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.400 into their into their their their mouths, if you will. Right, So, 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:12.680 we we know about that one. But if you're previously 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.480 unfamiliar with the plant like that, or or one of 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:20.040 these leaf closing plants like Mimosa putica or biophytum uh, 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.079 I imagine it would be shocking. Yeah. I mean we're 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:29.480 hardwired really to to expect that sudden movement in the 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.760 grass might be something dangerous. It might be a snake, 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.280 for example, Like that's the first place my mind goes 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.240 if I'm on a walk and there's some sort of 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.240 rustling in the bushes. It might it might be a snake, 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:42.840 or or it's something like you know, chipmunk or squirrel. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.319 Probably not a squirrel because they're a bit bolder. But 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.080 but certainly the snake is never far from one's mind. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.560 Very true. So anyway, for several centuries there was confusion 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.960 about how to taxonomize this plant that Christo Baul Acosta 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.520 was talking about, the herb of love and free Dell 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:03.720 points to an i've volume of the Botanical Register which says, hey, 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.480 we know about this plant from South America called the 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.280 Mimosa putica. It does that leaf shutting things. So maybe 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.120 this herb of love that Acosta is talking about in 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.240 India and the sixteenth century is actually the same plant. 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.359 After all, it does seem that pretty quickly after transatlantic 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:24.640 contact the mimosa spread all around the globe. But now 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.160 that doesn't seem to be the case. Botanists are pretty 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.280 clear that the herb of love was actually this other 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:33.160 species I mentioned a minute ago, Biophytum sins ativum and 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:37.320 freedl rights. This was funny quote. Perhaps the erotic claims 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.520 Acosta made so enthralled some that they failed to turn 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.080 the page to the next entry on Erba mimosa, a 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.640 likely description of the actual mimosa putica. Do your homework, guys, 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.560 come on. But anyway, I was thinking about this mechanism. 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.920 So immediately when I see a plant with rapid movement 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:58.720 like this, the leaf closing behavior, I wonder, how on 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.800 earth does it do that? Because, of course we can 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.680 move rapidly, but we can only do that because we 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.760 have a nervous system and a muscular skeletal system muscles. 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.520 Plants don't have either one. There are no muscles and 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:16.120 a plant. So what mechanism could a plant used to 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:20.240 contract on the order of seconds. Well, scientists have actually 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.440 figured out the answer to this one. The types of 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.960 movement on display in the sensitive plant and other rapid 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.040 moving plants like the venus fly trap are known as 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:34.640 seismo nastic movements, and these are an example of a 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.800 bigger category of nastic movements, which can be defined by 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.840 their difference from another type of plant movement called tropisms. Now, 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.840 tropisms I think we've all seen in action. You know 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:48.920 what this is if you've ever had house plants. A 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.120 tropism is growth in a specific direction based on an 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:58.240 external stimulus. So plants will grow toward a light source. 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.640 In fact, right in front of me, right out. I 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.640 have a potted plant here on my desk, and over time, 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:08.320 it's leaves all start reaching out for the lamp next 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.200 to it, until I turned the pot around, and then 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.200 gradually they all start to hook back in the opposite direction. 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.960 And uh, it just now struck me for the first time. 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.280 That might sound kind of cruel, like I'm toying with it, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.440 but I really don't think the plant's feelings are hurt. 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.240 Another example this would be trees seeing to grow around 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.360 power lines. Sure. Yeah, So plants can grow in different directions, 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:36.640 responding to objects or or stimuli in their environments. Nastic movements, 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:41.119 in contrast to tropisms, are not oriented in the direction 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:45.520 of a stimulus, but rather are fixed reflexes that are 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.480 determined by the plant's anatomy. So, for example, a venus 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.200 fly trap shows a nastic response. It doesn't go off 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.160 in a particular direction to catch a fly, but rather 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.360 when it since his movement in its trap area, the 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:04.480 hinge clothses, so it has a predetermined, a directionally predetermined 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.680 movement that is in keeping with the plant's anatomy, not 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:13.320 in an adaptable direction, and the sensitive plant is another 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.520 example of a nastic response. And I think it's interesting 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:21.959 to note that the stimulus direction dependent movements of plants 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.160 tend to be very slow, very very slow, and based 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.480 on growth, while the few plants that are able to 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.560 move rapidly in all cases that I'm aware of, certainly 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:35.960 in most cases their movement is constrained to these directionally 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.400 fixed reflexes. Now, of course, we animals have the best 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.159 of both worlds, right. We can move rapidly and we 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.920 have the flexibility to respond in whatever direction makes sense 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.480 given the stimulus. But you know that's because we're different 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.520 types of creatures, different anatomy, different energy requirements and so forth. 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.760 But okay, that's now stick movements now seised monastic movements 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.919 are nastic movements that are triggered by touch or by vibration. 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.840 Now again, um, without muscles, how it all this work? 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.920 How does the nastic movement actually happen? Well, here we 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.480 come to a really excellent new word I learned. The 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.959 word is turger spelled t u r g o r uh. 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.359 It's a good like a leather diaper, Barbarian name. But 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:27.800 it also it is a name for something that happens 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.879 within plants. It's related to the word turgid or turgidity. Uh. 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.920 And so within plants there is a principle called turger pressure. 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.879 And one simple way to think about turger pressure is 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:43.240 that it is like water pressure inside a plant. So 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:47.000 you think about the difference between a wilted flower baking 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:49.720 dry in the sun. You know it's parched, and you 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.000 see it drooping over, and then you think about what 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.760 that flower does after you water it. If things go well. 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.920 Usually you give a wilted plant water and its leaves 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.960 and stems stops sagging and they become rigid again. It 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.359 stands straight up the you know, the it's it's almost 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.960 like it's inflated like a balloon. Yeah, And in some 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.840 plants it's it's it's amazing the difference just a quick 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.919 watering can can have. Uh. We have a linen bomb, uh. 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.399 And I always find that that one among our plants 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.719 is the first to just immediately seem to give up 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.480 the ghost and start wilting away. But then you know, 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:24.720 you give it enough water and it's just back just 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.639 you know, bushy and full of life as ever totally. 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:29.480 In fact, you might have even observed this not with 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.280 a live plants, but uh, giving some veggies in the 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.680 kitchen a soak or even just a wash. This is 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.280 a good trick for resurrecting what appeared to be wilted 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.800 salad greens that are past their prime. You might think 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.399 they're no good, you know, you gotta toss them. You 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.879 would be surprised how salvageable some greens are after a 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.240 soak in cold water. Really like like spinach, this verst 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:52.960 of spinach. I don't know if I ever tried it 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:54.760 on spinach, but I've tried it on other types of 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.399 greens like you know, arugula and things like that that 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.480 are uh, you know, they're starting not like if they're 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.880 gonna slimy, you know, but if they're just like they're 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.040 clearly they're getting desiccated and wilted. It looks like, oh, 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:07.440 these are going to be no good, So come in 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:09.359 some cold water. They might come back to life and 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.200 be crisp again. I didn't know about this trick, but 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.879 now I I will have to try this sometime. But anyway, so, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.760 turger pressure is when a plant's cells are swollen with 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.600 water so that in the inside of the cells within 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.159 the plasma membrane. Uh, the water pressure is actually pushing 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.920 out against the cell wall, and so when turger pressure 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.960 is high, the plant is said to be turgid. And 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:35.480 so to come back to the sensitive plant, when the 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:40.320 leaves are touched or disturbed and electrochemical chain reaction is 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.280 set off, you know, that's sensed by cells in the leaves, 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.520 and then it sets off this electrochemical chain reaction that 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:51.439 eventually ends in water gushing out from so called motor 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.200 cells at the base of the leaflets that were previously turgid. 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:59.560 So the sudden loss of turger pressure the cells purging 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:04.320 their water contents causes the leaflet to move, basically to collapse. 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.480 That it's hinge, and this is known as turger movement. 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.000 So in in in a strange way, you can think 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.680 about it like the plant moving by causing itself to 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:19.080 very selectively and rapidly wilt like a parched plant. Then 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.560 over the course of the following minutes, turger pressure can 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:25.560 be restored and the leaves go ridgid again and they 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:27.800 go back to their extended state. But to come to 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.920 the next thing, UH, even more astonishing than the plant's 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.719 ability to behave physically in ways that seem more at 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:40.119 home in animals with muscles. Is potential evidence that the 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:44.600 Mimosa putica may also, in a qualified sense, behave mentally 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:49.880 in ways that seem more at home in animals with brains. Specifically, 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.600 there has been research arguing that this plant, an organism 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:57.200 entirely without a brain or without a nervous system, actually 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:02.879 has its own rudimentary form of memory. And uh, we'll 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.119 talk about one of the studies allegedly showing this in 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:07.840 a minute, But first I thought it might be good 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:12.080 to spend a few minutes disentangling concepts about the alleged 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:15.600 mental or cognitive properties of plants, because I think once 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.560 you get into this area, you run a whole gamut 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:25.000 of different types of claims of extremely variable evidential backing. Yeah, 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.280 and you also get into into areas of confusion over 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:32.359 like what constitutes uh, you know, animal intelligence and human 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.560 intelligence and so so I thought it might be helpful 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.280 to sort through some sort of general ideas regarding the 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.720 nature of plants in Western thought fourth century b c. E. 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:47.080 Thinker Aristotle, of course, casts along shadow, and he wrote 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:52.480 that plants have a vegetative soul or to threapticon, which 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:54.760 I believe just means the vegetable soul, not to be 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.760 confused with two megathereon, which means the great beast in 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.480 Greek and is of course a uh a Celtic frost 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:04.720 album um. But I couldn't help but think of that 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.560 when I was reading about twopon. Yeah, a lot of these. Well, 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:10.639 so there were people in like the nineteenth century and 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:13.159 stuff who were very interested in the sensitive plant, and 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:15.119 I think a lot of them made references back to 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.920 Aristotle and like, is this is what Aristotle was talking about? 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.600 Plants have a soul, they can feel right. But but 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.520 of course yes and no right, because they are two 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:25.520 important things to keep in mind about all of it. 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:29.480 First of all, he attributes nourishment and reproduction to the 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.080 plant soul. And we have to remember that the Greek 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:36.720 notion of a soul or suka is rather different than 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:39.720 modern or even early Christian notions of a soul. We're 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:42.359 not talking about like an inner ghost person that moves 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.240 on and has an afterlife, that sort of thing. This 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:48.000 would be more like the concept of a mind or 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:50.320 like or would it be like the idea of an 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:53.040 animating breath? There are a lot of different ideas of 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:56.760 things that get translated into English as soul from the 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:00.639 ancient world. Yeah. I was reading about this in an 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:03.399 excellent paper that I will probably continue to refer to 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:08.119 in this series by Michael Martyr from in Plant Signal 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:13.679 Behavior titled Plant Intentionality and the Phenomenological Framework of Plant Intelligence, 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:17.480 And in this he writes that the soul in this context, 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:22.080 in Aristotle's context, is quote a set of active capacities 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:26.480 of an organism, not an invisible entity connected to the divine. Okay, 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:28.320 that makes sense. So the soul is sort of like 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:33.119 the essence of the organism. It's like what the form 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:37.159 of the organism apart from its physical body. Right. And 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:41.200 while the vegetative soul here is defined by nourishment and reproduction, 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:45.920 animals and humans additionally have capacities of sensation and rational 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:50.280 thought added atop these baser soul characteristics. Now, I think 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:54.040 an interesting division there is that, uh so it's attributing 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:57.840 animals and humans with sensation and rational thought. I think 0:24:57.840 --> 0:24:59.639 a lot of people have made some what seemed to 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:04.639 me to be pretty um spurious claims about evidence for 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:08.600 rational thought in plants. But I would say it's completely 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:12.600 uncontroversial that plants experience a form of sensation, they can 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:16.040 gather information about their environment, and they do constantly. Yeah, 0:25:16.320 --> 0:25:20.040 but in Aristotle's hierarchy, you have basically have animals and 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:23.520 then you have plants in the minerals. Uh. And there's 0:25:23.560 --> 0:25:26.480 also this added caveat that aspects of the vegetative soul 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:30.359 continue on into forms that follow um, which which might 0:25:30.400 --> 0:25:33.160 not be all that helpful in what we're thinking about here, 0:25:33.240 --> 0:25:37.200 but perhaps bears mentioning. Now, aristotle shadow again is long, 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:39.840 and we see his ideas carried on into medieval Europe. 0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:44.400 Thirteenth century CE thinker Thomas Aquinas wrote in Puma Theology 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:47.040 that quote, the very fact that the acts of the 0:25:47.119 --> 0:25:52.320 vegetative soul do not obey reason shows that they rank lowest, lowest, 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:56.119 lower than minerals. Or was he not lower than minerals? 0:25:56.200 --> 0:25:58.320 That I think it would say in reference to animals 0:25:58.400 --> 0:26:01.920 and of course humans. Now, one thing that that martyr 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:06.320 points out is that while the aristotle view here, uh, 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:08.720 you know, it kind of used plants as baser and 0:26:08.800 --> 0:26:12.639 that they're only carrying out nourishment and reproduction. But he 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:16.320 writes that that's that's actually it's actually quite impressive within 0:26:16.440 --> 0:26:20.920 the modern context of certainly planned intelligence research, because these 0:26:20.960 --> 0:26:26.119 impulses nourishment and reproduction quote entail complex decisions related to 0:26:26.200 --> 0:26:29.960 the availability of resources. Now that's interesting because that could be, 0:26:30.400 --> 0:26:33.200 on one on one hand, very true, but also could 0:26:33.280 --> 0:26:37.040 easily be misinterpreted to to lead people to unjustified conclusions. 0:26:37.040 --> 0:26:39.240 And I want to get into a little more disentangling 0:26:39.280 --> 0:26:42.120 on concepts in a minute here, but yeah, flag that. Yes, 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:47.879 Martyr also adds quote Additionally, plants express almost all known neurotransmitters, 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:52.359 confirming the extension of two threpticon well beyond the activities 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:56.159 Aristotle and his followers allotted to them. Hence, the lines 0:26:56.200 --> 0:26:59.920 of demarcation between the higher and the lower capacities, between 0:27:00.040 --> 0:27:05.080 consciousness and non consciousness, and by implication, between biological regna 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:09.439 are not as rigid as classical thinkers believed, and there 0:27:09.480 --> 0:27:11.720 are a few other strains of more modern thought that 0:27:11.880 --> 0:27:15.639 Martyr shares. He points out that, according to late eighteenth 0:27:15.680 --> 0:27:20.040 and early nineteenth century German philosopher Hegel, plants are passive, 0:27:20.280 --> 0:27:25.320 they have negative selfhood, and they lack quote an organismic whole. Okay, 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:28.480 I don't know what that means. But that's hegel yeah, 0:27:28.560 --> 0:27:31.960 not a not a plant fan. Nineteenth century English naturalist 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:34.119 Charles Darwin, on the other hand, this I believe was 0:27:34.440 --> 0:27:37.359 like a later um thing that he wrote about. But 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:40.560 he had the root brain hypothesis that held that the 0:27:40.720 --> 0:27:43.280 root apex of a plant served as a brain like 0:27:43.480 --> 0:27:47.560 oregon that was both sensitive and capable of navigating soil 0:27:47.680 --> 0:27:50.359 in search of resources. Now, I think it might be 0:27:50.480 --> 0:27:53.560 going a little overboard to call it brain like, but 0:27:54.520 --> 0:27:57.640 Charles Darwin was clearly enthralled by plants like the venus 0:27:57.680 --> 0:28:01.520 fly trapp Like he got really excited about what this means. 0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:04.119 And uh, maybe we can come back to Darwin in 0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:06.399 in in part two of this, because I think some 0:28:06.560 --> 0:28:08.520 of his ideas might connect more to to some of 0:28:08.520 --> 0:28:10.480 the research we're going to talk about later on. Yeah, 0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:12.960 it's my understanding. And uh, and I believe the author 0:28:13.000 --> 0:28:15.600 mentions this that some of these ideas that Charles Charles 0:28:15.720 --> 0:28:19.680 Darwin had regarding this root brain hypothesis, like they've people 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:23.320 have come back to them, uh in modern plant intelligence 0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:25.959 research and and said, well, yeah, and then there's more 0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:28.920 to this than than people of of Darwin's day thought. 0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:32.600 Then there's also a nineteenth century German philosopher, Frederick Niici, 0:28:32.960 --> 0:28:35.639 who is very much I believe inspired by Darwin. In 0:28:35.720 --> 0:28:39.840 this wrote that a plant's nourishment and growth are expressions 0:28:39.880 --> 0:28:43.360 of its will to power, or the wills who mocked, 0:28:43.920 --> 0:28:47.520 which he identifies as the core driving force behind human beings. 0:28:48.400 --> 0:28:51.040 Oh my god, So this this plot, this potted plant 0:28:51.120 --> 0:28:52.960 in front of me, when it reaches for the lamp, 0:28:53.000 --> 0:28:54.880 and then I turn it around, I am thwarting its 0:28:54.920 --> 0:28:58.320 will to power. But I I am like the naysaying 0:28:58.400 --> 0:29:02.360 crowd that it must rebel against and and show its might. Yeah. 0:29:02.640 --> 0:29:04.760 And every day you don't kill it, you make it stronger, 0:29:04.880 --> 0:29:08.920 right now. Um. In Eastern thought, there of course strong 0:29:09.000 --> 0:29:12.400 traditions of all of this, as discussed in, among other 0:29:12.520 --> 0:29:16.120 many sources, uh In Richard Nesbits The Geography of Thought. 0:29:16.800 --> 0:29:21.160 China's Taoism and japan Japan's Shinto is Um both emphasize 0:29:21.200 --> 0:29:26.200 the spirits of animals, plants, natural objects, and artifacts. Uh 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:28.560 And And for my part, I've been reading a little 0:29:28.560 --> 0:29:31.920 bit about this um earlier when I was looking for 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:36.440 things to cover for Artifact and Monster Fact episodes. But um, 0:29:37.440 --> 0:29:39.120 you know, I don't want to steal any thunder from 0:29:39.240 --> 0:29:42.880 some possible potential episodes long or short form about these. 0:29:42.960 --> 0:29:46.320 But you know, we have strong folkloric, legendary and mythological 0:29:46.880 --> 0:29:51.240 um concepts of plant animal hybrids, which, of course, with 0:29:51.360 --> 0:29:56.560 all hybrids, they certainly perform various functions and symbolic um 0:29:57.200 --> 0:30:01.080 uh you know, metaphoric and per natural thought. But they 0:30:01.160 --> 0:30:05.560 also raised the question inevitably of animal nous and plants 0:30:05.760 --> 0:30:09.160 and plant nous in animals. You know, like you you 0:30:09.240 --> 0:30:12.640 can't think of something like say a screaming man dreak, 0:30:13.360 --> 0:30:16.560 or say the vegetable lamb of Targari. You know this 0:30:16.800 --> 0:30:19.800 this sheeplike thing that is growing out of the ground 0:30:19.880 --> 0:30:22.560 that is a plant but also seems like an animal, 0:30:22.680 --> 0:30:25.080 Like you can't. I don't think you can really have 0:30:25.200 --> 0:30:27.880 a concept like that without its sort of by blurring 0:30:27.960 --> 0:30:31.640 the lines, by invoking the hybrid, making you think about 0:30:31.760 --> 0:30:35.120 the characteristics of the opposite side that are present in 0:30:35.480 --> 0:30:39.600 this side. Yeah, yeah uh. In fact, I think several 0:30:39.760 --> 0:30:42.960 years back we did a an October episode called something 0:30:43.040 --> 0:30:47.080 like the Killer Tree that was legends of of trees 0:30:47.240 --> 0:30:50.640 that would eat people. It's a surprisingly common recurring motif, 0:30:50.760 --> 0:30:54.240 though apparently has no basis in in real biology. No, 0:30:54.640 --> 0:30:57.320 but I mean certainly not at the not not on 0:30:57.440 --> 0:31:00.600 the the animal time scale of things, but I guess 0:31:00.640 --> 0:31:02.680 on the plant time scale of things. Yeah, you can 0:31:02.720 --> 0:31:06.240 get into more nuanced discussions of plants eating people, plants 0:31:06.280 --> 0:31:08.800 eating human corpses and that sort of thing, right, but 0:31:08.880 --> 0:31:11.680 not not the active predation like in that Oh that 0:31:11.920 --> 0:31:14.440 is like a William Friedkin movie about the killer tree 0:31:14.560 --> 0:31:18.120 that gobbles people up. Oh my gosh, I don't remember 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:22.320 this one. Okay, yeah, well we'll have to revisit. But there, Yeah, 0:31:22.360 --> 0:31:24.880 there are clearly a lot of killer trees. And I 0:31:24.880 --> 0:31:27.960 mean you have things like the ants, right, uh, trees 0:31:28.000 --> 0:31:31.000 walking around like humans. And yeah, all these concepts they 0:31:31.160 --> 0:31:35.880 they they're they're performing a number of different functions. But 0:31:36.040 --> 0:31:38.240 I think one of them is that it inevitably makes 0:31:38.240 --> 0:31:40.640 you think about about plants and animals, what do they 0:31:40.680 --> 0:31:44.120 have in common when and what ways do they differ in? Indeed, yeah, 0:31:44.520 --> 0:31:46.920 in what ways might they be more alike than we 0:31:47.040 --> 0:31:57.400 often realize. Another thing is that as we're going forward 0:31:57.480 --> 0:32:02.200 talking about research potentially indicating something like a plant basis 0:32:02.360 --> 0:32:05.600 for memory or learning, I think we also have to 0:32:05.640 --> 0:32:09.880 be very careful because the whole the realm of plant 0:32:10.240 --> 0:32:14.120 uh so called plant cognition research, I think, has a 0:32:14.240 --> 0:32:18.400 history that is filled with stuff that is not so great. 0:32:18.520 --> 0:32:20.440 Like there are a number of different concepts regarding the 0:32:20.520 --> 0:32:24.120 hidden complexity of plants that people seem to get confused 0:32:24.200 --> 0:32:27.600 with each other. And this is unfortunate because these topics 0:32:27.720 --> 0:32:30.760 range from what appears to me to be maybe controversial 0:32:30.840 --> 0:32:34.480 but at least potentially evidence backed biology, and that would 0:32:34.520 --> 0:32:36.520 be things like, you know, some of the memory research 0:32:36.560 --> 0:32:39.040 we're gonna talk about, all the way over to pure 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:42.640 pseudoscience and paranormal stuff. And uh, just to give some 0:32:42.800 --> 0:32:45.680 quick flavor of the latter end of that spectrum, I'm 0:32:45.720 --> 0:32:49.120 reminded of something we talked about briefly in an episode 0:32:49.160 --> 0:32:51.040 that we did a long time ago. Rob, You remember 0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:53.760 when we did the Science of Stranger Things that New 0:32:53.800 --> 0:32:57.160 York Comic con. Yes, I do remember this. So it 0:32:57.280 --> 0:32:59.720 was in the context of that episode we were talking 0:32:59.720 --> 0:33:03.600 about government research into psychic and paranormal phenomena during the 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:07.320 Cold War, which absolutely did happen, and the extent of 0:33:07.400 --> 0:33:11.520 it is hilarious. But I read a couple of whole 0:33:11.560 --> 0:33:14.360 books about this. One, uh, of course, one if you 0:33:14.360 --> 0:33:16.320 want a quick read that's very funny is The Men 0:33:16.320 --> 0:33:19.520 Who Stare It Goes by John Ronson. But also there 0:33:19.600 --> 0:33:22.440 was a book by Annie Jacobson that was a big, complete, 0:33:22.520 --> 0:33:26.000 sort of history of the Stanford Research Institute and all 0:33:26.080 --> 0:33:30.760 of these paranormal government research projects that were fueled by 0:33:30.840 --> 0:33:33.560 Cold War paranoia, but looked into that. They looked into 0:33:33.640 --> 0:33:38.040 things like remote viewing and UH and and UH telekinesis 0:33:38.160 --> 0:33:42.000 and stuff like that. And unfortunately, I think a lot 0:33:42.080 --> 0:33:45.800 of that was just was just tricks and poorly designed experiments. 0:33:45.920 --> 0:33:50.000 But but but one brief episode from this, one of 0:33:50.040 --> 0:33:52.080 the people we talked about in that episode was a 0:33:52.240 --> 0:33:57.640 CIA interrogation expert named Cleave Baxter, who specialized apparently in 0:33:57.800 --> 0:34:02.560 narcotic and hypnotism based interrogation techniques and then later in 0:34:02.640 --> 0:34:07.040 the polygraph And according to a New York Times article 0:34:07.120 --> 0:34:11.600 I was reading about Baxter by Josh Eels, Baxter developed 0:34:11.600 --> 0:34:15.040 a method for conducting polygraph sessions called the Baxter zone 0:34:15.120 --> 0:34:18.359 comparison technique, which, according to this article, is still used 0:34:18.400 --> 0:34:23.120 in polygraph test today. So cool. Anyway, later in his career, 0:34:23.239 --> 0:34:27.960 Baxter quite famously became obsessed with the idea that plants 0:34:28.000 --> 0:34:30.440 could read our minds, and he claimed to show it 0:34:30.520 --> 0:34:34.600 with experiments. So the discovery of this the story goes 0:34:34.680 --> 0:34:38.120 like this. One night in nineteen sixty six, Baxter stayed 0:34:38.200 --> 0:34:40.680 up all night. He was drinking coffee, and he got 0:34:40.760 --> 0:34:44.239 an amazing idea. He would hook a potted plant up 0:34:44.320 --> 0:34:48.000 to a polygraph machine. I guess I don't know if 0:34:48.040 --> 0:34:49.520 he was going to see if it was telling lies 0:34:49.680 --> 0:34:52.400 or maybe you just I don't know. Uh. So, allegedly 0:34:52.480 --> 0:34:57.319 this plant was a quote corn plant or dressina fragrance, which, 0:34:57.360 --> 0:35:00.480 in a confusing twist, is completely different for the plant 0:35:00.600 --> 0:35:03.800 z maze, which is the grain plant that produces maize 0:35:03.960 --> 0:35:06.080 or corn, the food. So this is called a corn plant, 0:35:06.160 --> 0:35:08.600 but it's not the corn that would be planted in 0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:11.080 a as a crop. The corn plant had been a 0:35:11.120 --> 0:35:14.400 gift from his secretary, intended to brighten up his office, 0:35:14.480 --> 0:35:16.279 which I have not seen pictures of. I don't know 0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:18.239 what was in there, but I'm imagining a kind of 0:35:18.400 --> 0:35:21.279 dungeon full of chairs with leather straps on them and 0:35:21.400 --> 0:35:24.000 needles full of quack truth serums. So, yeah, you can 0:35:24.040 --> 0:35:26.840 imagine some plants would be nice. Yeah, you want to 0:35:26.880 --> 0:35:29.600 get some corn down there? Uh, so from here, I 0:35:29.680 --> 0:35:33.160 just want to quote from the article by Eels summarizing this, uh, 0:35:33.239 --> 0:35:37.560 this this experiment quote. In human subjects, a polygraph measures 0:35:37.600 --> 0:35:42.360 three things pulse, respiration rate, and galvanic skin response otherwise 0:35:42.440 --> 0:35:45.560 known as perspiration. If you're worried about being caught in 0:35:45.640 --> 0:35:49.240 a lie, your levels will spike or dip. Baxter wanted 0:35:49.280 --> 0:35:52.600 to induce a similar anxiety in the plant, so he 0:35:52.760 --> 0:35:56.080 decided to set one of its leaves on fire. But 0:35:56.200 --> 0:35:59.480 before he could even get a match, the polygraph registered 0:35:59.520 --> 0:36:03.240 and intense reaction on the part of the Dressina. To Baxter, 0:36:03.400 --> 0:36:07.440 the implication was as indisputable as it was unbelievable. Not 0:36:07.640 --> 0:36:11.799 only had the plant demonstrated fear, it had also read 0:36:12.000 --> 0:36:16.440 his mind. Uh. So Baxter became convinced that plants had 0:36:16.480 --> 0:36:20.960 psychic powers, consisting of a sensibility that he called primary perception, 0:36:21.440 --> 0:36:24.040 which they could use to read our minds and emotions 0:36:24.120 --> 0:36:27.520 from afar. And upon this discovery, he did what any 0:36:27.560 --> 0:36:30.359 responsible seeker of the truth would do. He went straight 0:36:30.440 --> 0:36:33.560 to the popular media. Uh. And there was a book 0:36:33.600 --> 0:36:36.680 based on his claims, and apparently uh he did a 0:36:36.800 --> 0:36:40.160 TV spot, multiple TV spots. But I like Johnny Carson 0:36:40.239 --> 0:36:42.040 and stuff. But one of them I wanted to note was, 0:36:42.080 --> 0:36:45.000 apparently with Leonard Nimoy, was this in search of. I 0:36:45.120 --> 0:36:46.880 don't know if the time frames right for that. I 0:36:46.920 --> 0:36:49.200 don't know if the time frames right either, but anseling 0:36:49.280 --> 0:36:52.560 makes me think of in search of And unfortunately skeptical 0:36:52.640 --> 0:36:55.960 scientists were unable to reproduce his results. They tried to 0:36:56.040 --> 0:36:59.560 do the same thing and got nothing. But if you 0:36:59.640 --> 0:37:03.120 poke round about this on the internet, you will find 0:37:03.239 --> 0:37:08.480 many believers even today still overflowing with faith in Baxter's claims. 0:37:09.239 --> 0:37:11.480 It's one of those ideas that lots of people just 0:37:11.640 --> 0:37:16.160 seem to like. It feels really true and wholesome and 0:37:16.440 --> 0:37:20.240 good to believe. Yes, plants can think, they can feel, 0:37:20.320 --> 0:37:22.600 they can know what we're thinking if we tell them, 0:37:22.680 --> 0:37:24.640 or maybe even if we don't tell them, if we 0:37:24.800 --> 0:37:27.600 just think it really hard, they can detect it somehow. 0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:31.960 But obviously there are there are major problems if you're 0:37:31.960 --> 0:37:36.080 trying to put together a coherent, scientifically informed worldview. First 0:37:36.120 --> 0:37:38.399 of all, I would say the theoretical basis is weak. 0:37:38.600 --> 0:37:41.440 Like you know, we could always discover something new, but 0:37:41.600 --> 0:37:44.280 it is not clear that there's any kind of physical 0:37:44.320 --> 0:37:47.520 mechanism that could allow something like that. And then the 0:37:47.600 --> 0:37:51.200 second part is just the empirical basis, like the controlled 0:37:51.239 --> 0:37:54.759 experiments by skeptics don't find the same thing. So yeah, 0:37:55.000 --> 0:37:57.680 this appears to be nonsense. I can't help but wonder 0:37:57.920 --> 0:38:01.600 if okay, this experiment was sixty six. Uh, Frank Herbert's 0:38:01.640 --> 0:38:04.479 Dune was first published in sixty five, and of course 0:38:04.560 --> 0:38:07.160 has the you know, very early on in the novel 0:38:07.239 --> 0:38:11.040 has the scene where we have the Benegesta test of 0:38:11.120 --> 0:38:13.880 the box and the com jabbar the box, which of 0:38:13.960 --> 0:38:17.400 course makes you feel like your hand is burning and 0:38:17.520 --> 0:38:21.120 on fire. And here in this test behalf that part 0:38:21.160 --> 0:38:24.640 of the plant is actually caught on fire. Wow, that's interesting. 0:38:24.800 --> 0:38:27.799 Yeah uh yeah. And the box is supposedly a kind 0:38:27.800 --> 0:38:30.520 of polygraph of its own. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And 0:38:30.640 --> 0:38:33.880 of course you have the Benegestate yeah, you know, truthsayers 0:38:33.880 --> 0:38:36.160 and so forth. Though, I think in our episode on 0:38:36.280 --> 0:38:38.640 that did we both come to the conclusion that we 0:38:38.719 --> 0:38:41.080 think that the real power is the box actually does 0:38:41.200 --> 0:38:43.880 nothing and it's just all in. It's all the reverend 0:38:43.960 --> 0:38:46.560 mother like she's the real test. Yeah. I think it's 0:38:46.600 --> 0:38:48.680 ultimately unknown, but we did. I think we we both 0:38:48.760 --> 0:38:51.120 liked that idea the most. Yeah, it felt the most 0:38:51.800 --> 0:38:56.000 herbert E of the ideas. It's just a prop But anyway, 0:38:56.040 --> 0:38:57.839 So to come back to all this, so we're gonna 0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:00.200 be talking about plant memory research. But I think I 0:39:00.239 --> 0:39:03.080 want to be clear that if you say that a 0:39:03.160 --> 0:39:05.960 plant could have such a thing as a memory or 0:39:06.280 --> 0:39:10.480 an ability to learn, that is truly surprising and fascinating. 0:39:10.520 --> 0:39:13.719 But it is not the same thing as saying or 0:39:13.760 --> 0:39:18.080 showing that plants can quote think, that plants are conscious, 0:39:18.600 --> 0:39:22.000 that plants have emotions, or that they get upset when 0:39:22.040 --> 0:39:24.719 you say or do negative things around them, all of 0:39:24.760 --> 0:39:26.680 which are claims that people have tried to make over 0:39:26.719 --> 0:39:29.160 the years, but which seemed to me to be lacking 0:39:29.239 --> 0:39:33.000 an evidential basis, with with the possible exception of quote 0:39:33.120 --> 0:39:36.960 thinking under some very broad or inclusive definitions of what 0:39:37.080 --> 0:39:40.160 counts as thought. Yeah. Like another area related to this 0:39:40.480 --> 0:39:45.120 is the relationship doing plants and sound. So can plants 0:39:45.160 --> 0:39:50.040 respond to sound, Yes they can, But can do plants 0:39:50.120 --> 0:39:54.759 then benefit from listening to music? There's no evidence for that. 0:39:54.920 --> 0:39:56.600 But I mean, this was an idea that was very 0:39:56.719 --> 0:40:01.080 much in tho zeitgeist, especially in the UH That's where 0:40:01.120 --> 0:40:04.080 we there was actually a wonderful album that came out, 0:40:04.680 --> 0:40:08.640 an early electronic music album by Mort Garson, who is 0:40:08.719 --> 0:40:10.680 a you know, early synth wizard who did a lot 0:40:10.719 --> 0:40:13.600 of a number of different projects under different names, but 0:40:13.719 --> 0:40:17.279 he put out this uh. This album titled UH Mother 0:40:17.400 --> 0:40:21.840 Earth's plant Asia, and it is supposed to be music 0:40:21.960 --> 0:40:25.000 that you play for your house plants, and your house 0:40:25.080 --> 0:40:28.239 plants then benefit from it. Um. I don't think, you know, 0:40:28.320 --> 0:40:30.720 house plants actually get nothing out of listening to this album. 0:40:31.000 --> 0:40:35.440 But it's a wonderful ambient, experimental electronic album for for humans. 0:40:35.640 --> 0:40:37.640 I love this. I would say I'm all for playing 0:40:37.719 --> 0:40:39.840 music for your plants. I don't think it does anything 0:40:39.920 --> 0:40:42.440 for the plants, but playing music for your plants might 0:40:42.480 --> 0:40:45.560 do something nice for you. Yeah, yeah, just like the plant. 0:40:45.600 --> 0:40:48.680 The presence of the plants certainly can have a very 0:40:48.719 --> 0:40:52.840 pleasant effect on the human psyche, so can UH ambient music. 0:40:53.040 --> 0:40:58.040 So double up, have them both and benefit. But anyway, 0:40:58.200 --> 0:41:00.239 before we end part one of this series, I did 0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:02.200 want to look at at least one of the studies 0:41:02.320 --> 0:41:05.680 that claims to find evidence for what you might call 0:41:05.880 --> 0:41:11.080 memory learning or habituation in plants. And in the next episode, 0:41:11.280 --> 0:41:14.360 we'll come back and talk about some reaction, criticism, and 0:41:14.440 --> 0:41:17.560 follow up of these types of ideas. So this is 0:41:17.640 --> 0:41:20.960 not without its accompanying controversy, but I thought it would 0:41:20.960 --> 0:41:23.200 be at least worthwhile to look at, like, what what 0:41:23.400 --> 0:41:26.800 the evidential claims of the recent research are. So earlier 0:41:26.880 --> 0:41:31.840 we mentioned that scientists are actually not sure why Mimosa 0:41:31.880 --> 0:41:35.520 putica closes its leaves, though it is generally believed to 0:41:35.600 --> 0:41:38.360 be some kind of defensive reaction to prevent the leaves 0:41:38.440 --> 0:41:42.560 from being eaten by grazing herbivores or insects. So if 0:41:42.640 --> 0:41:45.600 that's the case, you might wonder, well, why don't the 0:41:45.640 --> 0:41:47.839 plants just keep their leaves folded up all the time? 0:41:48.000 --> 0:41:50.080 Would then they'd be protected always? Why do they have 0:41:50.160 --> 0:41:54.680 to do it rapidly suddenly? Uh? Well, because if they 0:41:54.719 --> 0:41:56.840 were to keep their leaves closed all the time, the 0:41:56.960 --> 0:42:00.360 plant would be drastically reducing its ability to collect unlight 0:42:00.440 --> 0:42:03.799 and feed through photosynthesis. And this is the classic risk 0:42:03.880 --> 0:42:06.600 reward paradigm that we know well with all kinds of animals. 0:42:06.680 --> 0:42:09.680 You have a small prey animal that might be much 0:42:09.800 --> 0:42:12.640 safer if it stays and it's cozy little burrow all day. 0:42:13.000 --> 0:42:16.400 But if it never leaves, it foregoes opportunities to get food. 0:42:16.760 --> 0:42:18.800 It needs to go out to do the things that 0:42:18.960 --> 0:42:21.480 it must do to sustain its life cycle and reproduce. 0:42:21.520 --> 0:42:23.680 So it's got to find food, it's got to find mates. 0:42:23.760 --> 0:42:25.160 And you know you're not going to get that just 0:42:25.239 --> 0:42:27.239 sitting in your hole. And you could say the same 0:42:27.320 --> 0:42:29.800 is true for this plant. So the evolutionary logic that 0:42:30.040 --> 0:42:33.320 drives the folding behavior of the leaves and the sensitive 0:42:33.320 --> 0:42:37.800 plant will reward the folding in scenarios where it actually 0:42:37.960 --> 0:42:43.120 protects the leaf from predation, but it will punish unnecessary folding, 0:42:43.160 --> 0:42:47.759 which wastes precious opportunities to harvest the sunlight. And we've 0:42:47.760 --> 0:42:50.560 already seen a couple of demonstrations of this balance. One 0:42:50.800 --> 0:42:54.239 is that the leaves tend to fold at night time 0:42:54.480 --> 0:42:57.239 when there's no point in being exposed because there's no 0:42:57.360 --> 0:43:00.680 sunlight to absorb. And another is that once the leaves 0:43:00.800 --> 0:43:04.360 close in response to a seismic stimulus, they reopen again, 0:43:04.719 --> 0:43:07.040 usually within a few minutes. They're ready to get back 0:43:07.080 --> 0:43:09.719 to the buffet. But to continue the logic of this 0:43:09.960 --> 0:43:14.040 risk reward balance, it would also obviously benefit the plant 0:43:14.160 --> 0:43:18.440 if it had a mechanism for discriminating between a potentially 0:43:18.600 --> 0:43:22.480 dangerous seismic stimulus and a harmless one. And you can 0:43:22.560 --> 0:43:26.360 imagine scenarios in the wild where plants are repeatedly shaken 0:43:26.440 --> 0:43:29.480 in some way or subjected to physical contact with objects 0:43:29.520 --> 0:43:33.480 in the environment, maybe by wind or something uh in 0:43:33.520 --> 0:43:36.120 a way that is not actually a threat to the plant. 0:43:36.160 --> 0:43:39.239 Were closing the leaflets every time that happened would be 0:43:39.360 --> 0:43:44.239 pointless and harmful to survival. So do these plants have 0:43:44.320 --> 0:43:47.920 a mechanism that allows them to discriminate like that? And 0:43:48.080 --> 0:43:50.880 according to this following study, it looks like maybe they do. So. 0:43:51.040 --> 0:43:55.640 This was a study published in Ecologia in by Monica Gagliano, 0:43:56.400 --> 0:44:01.640 Michael Renton, Martial dip Chinsky, and stuff Fauno Mancuso called 0:44:01.760 --> 0:44:05.239 experience teaches plants to learn faster and forget slower in 0:44:05.440 --> 0:44:08.359 environments where it matters. So the authors write in their 0:44:08.360 --> 0:44:13.200 abstract quote, the nervous system of animals serves the acquisition, memorization, 0:44:13.280 --> 0:44:17.880 and recollection of information. Like animals, plants also acquire a 0:44:18.000 --> 0:44:21.360 huge amount of information from their environment, Yet their capacity 0:44:21.440 --> 0:44:25.560 to memorize and organized learned behavioral responses has not been 0:44:25.640 --> 0:44:30.520 demonstrated in Mimosa putica, the sensitive plant. The defensive leaf 0:44:30.560 --> 0:44:35.920 folding behavior in response to repeated physical disturbance exhibits clear habituation, 0:44:36.120 --> 0:44:41.120 suggesting some elementary form of learning. So how do they 0:44:41.120 --> 0:44:45.040 actually demonstrate this, Well, they did a series of experiments, 0:44:45.080 --> 0:44:49.000 but one of their models is they took potted specimens 0:44:49.080 --> 0:44:52.799 of Mimosa putica and they mounted them on this contraption 0:44:52.880 --> 0:44:56.120 that would repeatedly drop the potted plant a distance of 0:44:56.200 --> 0:45:00.640 fifteen centimeters onto a padded surface, and the drops were 0:45:00.760 --> 0:45:05.239 organized into repeated sessions of multiple exposures. And sure enough, 0:45:05.800 --> 0:45:09.200 the plants, after they were repeatedly exposed to the same 0:45:09.360 --> 0:45:13.840 fifteen centimeter drop, started reopening their leaves more quickly and 0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:18.160 eventually started ignoring the stimulus more or less entirely, just 0:45:18.360 --> 0:45:22.520 keeping their leaves open during a drop. And that's really interesting. 0:45:22.600 --> 0:45:25.800 It might seem to indicate that the plant is becoming 0:45:25.880 --> 0:45:30.360 habituated to this particular thing. It's like, Okay, being dropped 0:45:30.400 --> 0:45:33.320 fifteen centimeters is just something that happens. Now, This is 0:45:33.360 --> 0:45:35.120 just how things are. I know what it feels like. 0:45:35.239 --> 0:45:37.600 It doesn't hurt me. I'm over it. By the way 0:45:37.920 --> 0:45:40.879 that I guess I am anthropomorphizing there, so I don't 0:45:40.920 --> 0:45:43.920 mean to imply that it is actually reasoning out in 0:45:44.200 --> 0:45:47.799 in uh semantic logic like that. But that's to give 0:45:47.840 --> 0:45:50.919 you the idea that it's somehow becoming habituated to something 0:45:51.000 --> 0:45:53.719 that's happening over and over again without hurting it, and 0:45:53.800 --> 0:45:57.400 it's just learning to ignore that thing. Now, there's an 0:45:57.480 --> 0:46:01.680 obvious other explanation if this was all they discovered. What 0:46:01.880 --> 0:46:04.800 if this was just the plant's leaf closing mechanism getting 0:46:04.840 --> 0:46:07.960 worn out over time, It's just becoming exhausted and running 0:46:08.000 --> 0:46:10.040 out of the juice that it needs to use to 0:46:10.120 --> 0:46:14.000 close its leaves. Well, the researchers they thought about this, 0:46:14.160 --> 0:46:17.160 and they controlled for this by introducing a new novel 0:46:17.239 --> 0:46:21.440 stimulus after the plant became habituated. This was the shake, 0:46:21.760 --> 0:46:25.160 so different from the drop, but it would also stimulate 0:46:25.239 --> 0:46:28.840 the seismonastic closure of the leaflets to shake the potted plant. 0:46:29.360 --> 0:46:31.920 And they found that even when a plant had become 0:46:32.000 --> 0:46:36.040 desensitized to the drop, apparently through habituation, it would still 0:46:36.200 --> 0:46:39.040 close its leaves just like normal when given a shake. 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:41.480 So this would seem to help rule out the idea 0:46:41.560 --> 0:46:45.600 that it's just the plant's leaf closure mechanisms becoming exhausted 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:49.320 by repeated use. Now, there are some more interesting details 0:46:49.360 --> 0:46:51.160 from this and this one that we might get into 0:46:51.360 --> 0:46:54.400 in the in the next part of this series. For example, 0:46:54.480 --> 0:46:57.320 they found that apparently this uh, this habituation to the 0:46:57.360 --> 0:47:00.400 fifteen centimeter drop was still present weeks later after the 0:47:00.440 --> 0:47:05.600 initial sessions, and that it was variable and adaptable depending 0:47:05.800 --> 0:47:10.080 on the hostility of the conditions, like the light conditions 0:47:10.120 --> 0:47:12.480 in which it was happening. But maybe if we get 0:47:12.520 --> 0:47:14.359 into those, we can do that in part two, because 0:47:14.480 --> 0:47:16.719 I think we need to wrap up part one for now, 0:47:16.800 --> 0:47:19.520 but I'm so excited all the things we get to 0:47:19.520 --> 0:47:21.680 talk about when we come come back next time. More 0:47:21.760 --> 0:47:25.200 research on plants and memory. Uh. If plants do in 0:47:25.320 --> 0:47:28.879 fact possess some rudimentary form of memory and learning, how 0:47:29.000 --> 0:47:31.200 what is the physical basis of that, given of course 0:47:31.239 --> 0:47:34.279 that they don't have brains, uh? And what would that 0:47:34.480 --> 0:47:38.560 mean for our understanding of what intelligence and its subdivided 0:47:38.680 --> 0:47:41.080 parts are. Yeah? Yeah, this should continue to be a 0:47:41.120 --> 0:47:43.560 fun exploration. And this is this is an exploration that 0:47:43.640 --> 0:47:46.000 we've we've been talking about doing for years and I 0:47:46.080 --> 0:47:48.920 know we've had some listeners, right in requesting that we 0:47:49.080 --> 0:47:52.239 cover this topic. So it's great to finally be able 0:47:52.280 --> 0:47:54.719 to dive in. All right, so we're gonna go and 0:47:54.800 --> 0:47:57.440 close it out, but we'll be back next time with 0:47:57.880 --> 0:48:01.160 more on on this topic. Uh. In the meantime, if 0:48:01.200 --> 0:48:02.960 you want to check out other episodes of Stuff to 0:48:02.960 --> 0:48:05.360 Blow Your Mind, our core episodes come out on Tuesdays 0:48:05.400 --> 0:48:08.000 and Thursdays, we have a rerun that comes out of 0:48:08.040 --> 0:48:11.920 fault episode. On the weekend, we do listener mail on Monday, 0:48:12.000 --> 0:48:14.800 we do a short form artifactor Monster Fact on Wednesday, 0:48:15.080 --> 0:48:18.160 and on Friday we set aside most serious matters and 0:48:18.280 --> 0:48:21.560 just discuss a weird film on Weird House Cinema. Huge 0:48:21.640 --> 0:48:25.120 thanks as always to UH well, actually to our regular 0:48:25.719 --> 0:48:28.920 producer Seth Nicholas Johnson, and thanks to our guest producer 0:48:29.040 --> 0:48:33.040 today Paul decand uh Paul really appreciate you seven in 0:48:33.160 --> 0:48:35.279 for us today. 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