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- | **The Secret Life of Plants: Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, 1973** | + | **The Secret Life of Plants: |
[[reading_notes]] by [[Cocky_Eek]] | [[reading_notes]] by [[Cocky_Eek]] | ||
Line 25: | Line 25: | ||
creations of romance. | creations of romance. | ||
- | ---Far from existing inertly, | + | ---the inhabitants of the pasture -or botane- appear to be **able to perceive and to |
react to what is happening in their environment at a level of sophistication** | react to what is happening in their environment at a level of sophistication** | ||
far surpassing that of humans. | far surpassing that of humans. | ||
Line 54: | Line 54: | ||
to insects, but remain relatively unattractive. | to insects, but remain relatively unattractive. | ||
- | ------Plants are even sentient to orientation and to the future. | + | ------the leaves |
of the sunflower plant, **Silphium laciniatum, accurately indicate | of the sunflower plant, **Silphium laciniatum, accurately indicate | ||
the points of the compass**. Indian licorice, or Arbrus precatorius, | the points of the compass**. Indian licorice, or Arbrus precatorius, | ||
Line 68: | Line 68: | ||
the world, subjectively revealed to him through his five senses-knows | the world, subjectively revealed to him through his five senses-knows | ||
nothing. | nothing. | ||
- | Whereas plants | + | Plants |
- | automata, they have now been found to be able to distinguish between | + | |
sounds inaudible to the human ear and color wavelengths such as infra- | sounds inaudible to the human ear and color wavelengths such as infra- | ||
red and ultraviolet invisible to the human eye; they are specially sensitive | red and ultraviolet invisible to the human eye; they are specially sensitive | ||
Line 93: | Line 92: | ||
- | < | + | < |
+ | a variety of new products: the red color seen on television screens; | ||
+ | fluorescent crayons; tags for insecticides; | ||
+ | to determine, from their urine, the secret trackways of rodents in cellars, | ||
+ | sewers, and slums. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---Vogel found that some of the philodendrons he worked with | ||
+ | responded faster, others more slowly, some very distinctly, others less | ||
+ | distinctly, and that not only plants but their **individual leaves had their | ||
+ | own unique personality and individuality**. Leaves with a large electrical | ||
+ | resistance were especially difficult to work with; **fleshy leaves with a high | ||
+ | water content were the best**. Plants appeared to go through phases of | ||
+ | activity and inactivity, full of response at certain times of the day or days | ||
+ | of the month, " | ||
+ | To make sure that none of these recording effects was the result of | ||
+ | faulty electroding, | ||
+ | of a **solution of agar, with a thickener of karri gum, and salt**. This paste | ||
+ | he brushed onto the leaves before gently applying carefully polished | ||
+ | one-by-one-and-a-half-inch stainless-steel electrodes. When the agar | ||
+ | jelly hardened around the edges of the electronic pickups, it sealed their | ||
+ | faces into a moist interior, virtually eliminating all the variability in | ||
+ | signal output caused by pressure on leaves when clamped between ordi- | ||
+ | nary electrodes. This system produced for Vogel a base line on the chart | ||
+ | that Was perfectly straight, without oscillations. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---" | ||
+ | oscillating wildly on the chart. This led to speculation that talking of sex | ||
+ | could stir up in the atmosphere some sort of sexual energy such as the | ||
+ | " | ||
+ | ancient fertility rites in which humans had **sexual intercourse in freshly | ||
+ | seeded fields might indeed have stimulated plants to grow**. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---electronics engineer L. George Lawrence believed that biological radiations transmitted by living things are best received | ||
+ | by a biological medium. biological-type sensors | ||
+ | are needed in order to intercept biological signals, applies particularly to | ||
+ | communications from outer space. As he puts it: " | ||
+ | are next to worthless here, since ' | ||
+ | of the known electromagnetic spectrum." | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---1920s the Russian histologist Alexander Gurwitsch and his | ||
+ | wife, proclaimed that all living cells produce an invisible radiation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---Since glass and gelatin are known to block various ultraviolet | ||
+ | frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. | ||
+ | them. Pg 54 | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---1969. Lawrence; Four main questions, were starting to attract serious | ||
+ | attention: **Could plants be integrated with electronic readouts to form | ||
+ | major data sensors and transducers? | ||
+ | to the presence of selected objects and images? Were their alleged | ||
+ | supersensory perceptions verifiable? Of the 350,000 plant species known | ||
+ | to science, which were the most promising from the electronic point of | ||
+ | view**? | ||
+ | |||
+ | "There are certain qualities here," he wrote, | ||
+ | "which do not enter into normal experimental situations. According to | ||
+ | those experimenting in this area, it is necessary to have a 'green thumb' | ||
+ | and, most important, a genuine love for plants." | ||
+ | ........................................... | ||
+ | |||
+ | === Latest Soviet Discoveries === | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---biologist Karamanov published "**The Application of Automation and Cybernetics to Plant Husbandry.**" | ||
+ | and leaves, the intensity of their transpiration, | ||
+ | characteristics of their radiation. He picked up detailed information on when and how much a plant wants to drink, whether it craves | ||
+ | more nourishment or is too hot or cold. | ||
+ | |||
+ | --He showed that an ordinary bean plant had acquired the equivalent of " | ||
+ | afforded the capability of independently establishing the optimal length | ||
+ | of its ' | ||
+ | the equivalent of " | ||
+ | wanted water.** " | ||
+ | continued, "it did not guzzle the water indiscriminately but limited | ||
+ | itself to a two-minute drink each hour, thus regulating its water need | ||
+ | with the help of an artificial mechanism. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---Beans, potatoes, wheat, and crowfoot | ||
+ | after proper " | ||
+ | repeated the pulsations with " | ||
+ | The scientists next went on, to condition a | ||
+ | philodendron to recognize when a piece of mineralized rock was put | ||
+ | beside it. Using the system developed by Pavlov with dogs, whereby he | ||
+ | discovered the " | ||
+ | mineralized ore was placed next to it. They reported that, after condi- | ||
+ | tioning, the same plant, anticipating the hurtful shock, would get "emo- | ||
+ | tionally upset" whenever the block of ore was put beside it. Further- | ||
+ | more, said the Kazakh scientists, the plant could distinguish between | ||
+ | mineralized ore and a similar piece of barren rock containing no miner- | ||
+ | als, a feat which might indicate that plants will one day be used in | ||
+ | **geological prospecting.** | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---V.n. Pushkin, psychological scientist surmised that **a hypnotized person should be able | ||
+ | to send emotions to a plant more directly** and spontaneously than a | ||
+ | person in a normal state. Hypnotizing a young girl by the name of | ||
+ | Tanya, who was described by Pushkin as of " | ||
+ | spontaneous emotionality," | ||
+ | she was one of the most beautiful women in the world, then the notion | ||
+ | that she was freezing in harsh raw weather. At each change in the girl' | ||
+ | mood the plant, which was attached to an encephalograph, | ||
+ | with an appropriate pattern on the graph. "We were able," says Pushkin "to get an electrical reaction as many times as we worked, even to | ||
+ | the most arbitrary commands.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---Pushkin and Fetisov decided to see whether **the plant could detect | ||
+ | a lie**, as Backster had claimed. It was suggested to Tanya that she thinks of a number from 1 to 10. At the same time she was told she would never | ||
+ | reveal the number, even if pressed to do so. When the researchers | ||
+ | counted slowly from I to 10, pausing after each digit to inquire whether | ||
+ | it was the one she had thought of, each time Tanya responded with a | ||
+ | decisive " | ||
+ | in her answers, the plant gave a specific and clear reaction to her internal | ||
+ | state when the number 5 was counted. It was the number which Tanya | ||
+ | had selected and promised not to reveal. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---plants have memory. They are able | ||
+ | to gather impressions and retain them over long periods. We had a man | ||
+ | molest, even torture, a geranium for several days in a row. He pinched | ||
+ | it, tore it, pricked its leaves with a needle, dripped acid on its living tissues, | ||
+ | burned it with a lighted match, and cut its roots. Another man took | ||
+ | tender care of the same geranium, watered it, worked its soil, sprayed it | ||
+ | with fresh water, supported its heavy branches, and treated its burns and | ||
+ | wounds. When we e1ectroded our instruments to the plant, what do you | ||
+ | think? No sooner did **the torturer come near the plant than the recorder | ||
+ | of the instrument began to go wild**. **The plant didn't just get " | ||
+ | it was afraid, it was horrified.** If it could have, it would have either thrown | ||
+ | itself out the window or attacked its torturer. Hardly had this inquisitor | ||
+ | left and the good man taken his place near the plant than the geranium | ||
+ | was appeased, its impulses died down, the recorder traced out smooth- | ||
+ | one might almost say tender-lines on the graph. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---In addition to a plant' | ||
+ | researchers also noted that one plant supplied with water can somehow | ||
+ | share it with a deprived neighbor. In one institute of research a cornstalk | ||
+ | planted in a glass container was denied water for several weeks. Yet it | ||
+ | did not die; it remained as healthy as other cornstalks planted in normal | ||
+ | conditions nearby. In some way, **water was transferred from healthy plants to the " | ||
+ | no idea how this was accomplished. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---As fantastic as this may seem, a kind of plant-to-plant transfer has | ||
+ | been taking place in England in experiments begun in 1972 by Dr. | ||
+ | A. R. Bailey. Two plants in an artificially lit greenhouse in which temper- | ||
+ | ature, humidity, and light were carefully controlled were suffering from | ||
+ | lack of water. Bailey and his collaborator measured the voltages gene- | ||
+ | rated between two parts of both plants. When one plant was watered | ||
+ | from the outside through plastic tubes, the other plant reacted. As Bailey | ||
+ | told the British Society of Dowsers: "There was no electrical connection | ||
+ | between them, no physical connection whatsoever, but **somehow one | ||
+ | plant picked up what was going on with the other." | ||
+ | |||
+ | ---research of the American Nobel Prize winner Melvin Calvin in photo· | ||
+ | synthesis, wherein he discovered that **plant chlorophyll under the influ- | ||
+ | ence of the sun's rays can give up electrons to a semiconductor such as | ||
+ | zinc oxide**. Melvin and his co-workers created a "green photoelement," | ||
+ | which produced a current of approximately 0.1 microamperes per square | ||
+ | centimeter. After several minutes, the plant | ||
+ | chlorophyll becomes desensitized or " | ||
+ | extended by the addition of** hydroquinone to the salt solution which acts | ||
+ | as an electrolyte**. The chlorophyll seems to act as a kind of electron | ||
+ | pump passing electrons from the hydroquinone to the semiconductor. | ||
+ | Calvin has calculated that a chlorophyll photoelement with an area | ||
+ | of ten square meters could yield a kilowatt of power. He has theorized | ||
+ | that in the next quarter century such photoelements could be manufac· | ||
+ | tured on an industrial scale and would be a hundred times cheaper than | ||
+ | silicone solar batteries now being experimented with. Pg 76 | ||
+ | |||
+ | === pioneers of plant mysteries === | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||