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--- secret_life_of_plants [2011-04-09 18:16] – cocky
+++ secret_life_of_plants [2011-04-09 21:16] – cocky
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 not moved, either toward the plant or toward the recording machine.
 **Could the plant have been reading his mind**?
+-------------------------------
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-<html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/5603665616/" title="Picture 20 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5183/5603665616_800acb1622.jpg" width="50" height="125" alt="Picture 20"></a></html>---Luminescence in Liquids and Solids and Their Practical Application published by Marcel Vogel. Vogel developed
+<html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/5603665616/" title="Picture 20 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5183/5603665616_800acb1622.jpg" width="50" height="110" alt="Picture 20"></a></html>---"Luminescence in Liquids and Solids and Their Practical Application" by Marcel Vogel. He developed
 a variety of new products: the red color seen on television screens;
 fluorescent crayons; tags for insecticides; a "black light" inspection kit
@@ Line 117: / Line 119: @@
 that Was perfectly straight, without oscillations.
-"How about sex?" To their surprise, the plant came to life, the pen recorder
+---"How about sex?" To their surprise, the plant came to life, the pen recorder
 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
@@ Line 135: / Line 137: @@
 ---Since glass and gelatin are known to block various ultraviolet
-frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum, Gurwitsch concluded that
+frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum.
-the rays emitted by the cells of an onion root tip must be as short as ~
+them. Pg 54
-shorter than ultraviolet. Because they apparently increased cell division.
-or "mitosis," he called them "mitogenetic rays." Gurwitsch's findings had created a furor in the scientific world. laboratories hastened to check them. Since the wavelengths claimed for
+---1969. Lawrence; Four main questions, were starting to attract serious
-the new rays were more powerful than the ultra violet frequencies which reach the earth from the sun, many biologists could not believe that living processes were capable of generating.
+attention: **Could plants be integrated with electronic readouts to form
-them. Pg 54-55
+major data sensors and transducers? Could they be trained to respond
+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**?  Pg 56
+"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."  Pg 57
+----------------------
+=== Latest Soviet Discoveries ===
+<html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/5603081691/" title="Picture 21 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5228/5603081691_bd6820b484.jpg" width="73" height="110" alt="Picture 21"></a></html>---film by Panishkin "Are Plants Sentient?"
+---biologist Karamanov published "**The Application of Automation and Cybernetics to Plant Husbandry.**" He builded a.o. microthermistors, weight tensiometers, to register the temperature of plants, the flow rate of fluid in their stems
+and leaves, the intensity of their transpiration, their growth rates, and
+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 "hands" to signal an instrumental brain how much light it needed. When the brain sent "hands" signals, "they had only to press a switch, and the plant was thus
+afforded the capability of independently establishing the optimal length
+of its 'day' and 'night.' " Later, the same bean plant, having acquired
+the equivalent of "legs," was **able instrumentally to signal whenever it
+wanted water.** "Showing itself to be a fully rational being," the account
+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.  Pg 67
+---Beans, potatoes, wheat, and crowfoot
+after proper "instruction" seemed to have the capability of remembering the frequency of Hashes from a xenon-hydrogen lamp. The plants
+repeated the pulsations with  "exceptional accuracy," and since crowfoot was able to repeat a given frequency after a pause as long as eighteen hours it was possible to speak of "**Long-term” memory in plants**.
+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 "conditioned reflex," the Kazakh scientists simultaneously "punished" a philodendron with an electrical shock each time a
+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.**  Pg 69
+---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 "lively temperament and
+spontaneous emotionality," they first implanted in her the notion that
+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's
+mood the plant, which was attached to an encephalograph, responded
+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 "No!" Though the psychologists could not see any difference
+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.  Pg 71
+---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 "nervous";
+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.  Pg 73
+---In addition to a plant's ability to recognize friend and foe, Soviet
+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 "prisoner" in the jar**. Yet they have
+no idea how this was accomplished.  Pg 73
+---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."**  Pg 74
+---research of the American Nobel Prize winner Melvin Calvin in photo·
+synthesis, wherein he discovered that **plant chlorophyll under the influence of the sun's rays can give up electrons to a semiconductor such as
+zincoxide**. 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 "exhausted," but its life could be
+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 ===
+<html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/5603665558/" title="Picture 19 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5107/5603665558_842f68afa0.jpg" width="73" height="49" alt="Picture 19"></a></html>