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| - | ====== The Secret | + | ====== The Secret |
| **The Secret Life of Plants: by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, 1973** | **The Secret Life of Plants: by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, 1973** | ||
| - | [[reading_notes]] by [[Cocky_Eek]] | + | [[reading_notes]] by [[Cocky_Eek]] |
| - | === Introduction === | + | ==== Introduction ==== |
| - | < | + | |
| + | < | ||
| Raoul Francé put forth the idea, shocking to contemporary natural philosophers, | Raoul Francé put forth the idea, shocking to contemporary natural philosophers, | ||
| that the only reason we don't appreciate the fact is that plants do so at | that the only reason we don't appreciate the fact is that plants do so at | ||
| Line 86: | Line 86: | ||
| **Could the plant have been reading his mind**? | **Could the plant have been reading his mind**? | ||
| + | // | ||
| + | related libarynth topics:// | ||
| + | * [[plant perception]] | ||
| + | * [[groworld HPI ii]] | ||
| + | ------------------------------- | ||
| - | === ESP, or extrasensory perception === | + | |
| + | |||
| + | ==== ESP, or extrasensory perception ==== | ||
| + | |||
| - | < | + | < |
| a variety of new products: the red color seen on television screens; | a variety of new products: the red color seen on television screens; | ||
| fluorescent crayons; tags for insecticides; | fluorescent crayons; tags for insecticides; | ||
| Line 134: | Line 143: | ||
| wife, proclaimed that all living cells produce an invisible radiation. | 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. Four main questions, said Lawrence, were starting to attract serious | + | ---1969. |
| attention: **Could plants be integrated with electronic readouts to form | attention: **Could plants be integrated with electronic readouts to form | ||
| major data sensors and transducers? | major data sensors and transducers? | ||
| Line 150: | Line 156: | ||
| those experimenting in this area, it is necessary to have a 'green thumb' | those experimenting in this area, it is necessary to have a 'green thumb' | ||
| and, most important, a genuine love for plants." | 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 " | ||
| + | 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's | ||
| + | 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 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 " | ||
| + | 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 | ||
| + | |||
| + | // | ||
| + | related topic// | ||
| + | |||
| + | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | ==== Pioneers of Plant Mysteries ==== | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | < | ||
| + | of carrots and turnips, which, of all vegetables, appeared to him the most | ||
| + | stolidly nonsentient, | ||
| + | chloroformed plants, Bose discovered that they were as successfully | ||
| + | anesthetized as animals, and that when the narcotic vapor was blown | ||
| + | away by fresh air like animals they revived. **Using chloroform to tranquilize a huge pine tree,** Bose was able to uproot it and transplant it without | ||
| + | the usually fatal shock of such operations. Pg 87 | ||
| + | |||
| + | ---Since Bose knew that in plants there was respiration without gills or lungs, | ||
| + | digestion without a stomach, and movements without muscles, it | ||
| + | seemed plausible to him that there could be the same kind of excitation | ||
| + | as in higher animals but without a complicated nervous system. | ||
| + | Bose concluded that the only way to find out about the unseen | ||
| + | changes which take place in plants and **tell if they were excited or | ||
| + | depressed** would be to measure visually their responses to what he | ||
| + | called " | ||
| + | the plant give an answering signal. Secondly, we have to supply the | ||
| + | means for an automatic conversion of these signals into an intelligent | ||
| + | script. And, last of all, we have ourselves to learn the nature of these | ||
| + | hieroglyphics." | ||
| + | |||
| + | ---Bose was able to show how the skins | ||
| + | of lizards, tortoises, and frogs as well as those of grapes, tomatoes behaved similarly. He found that the vegetal | ||
| + | digestive organs in insectivorous plants, from the tentacle of a sundew | ||
| + | to the hair-lined flap of a pitcher plant, were analogous to animal stom- | ||
| + | achs. He discovered close parallels between the response to light in | ||
| + | leaves and in the retinas of animal eyes. With his magnifier he proved | ||
| + | that plants become as fatigued by continuous stimulation as animal | ||
| + | muscles, whether they were **hypersensitive mimosas or undemonstrative | ||
| + | radishes**. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ---Working with the **Desmodium gyrans, a species whose continuously | ||
| + | oscillating leaves recall the motion of semaphore flags** and led to its | ||
| + | common appellation, | ||
| + | could stop its automatic ceaseless pulsation would also stop an animal | ||
| + | heart and that the antidote for this poison could bring both organisms | ||
| + | back to life. Pg 92 | ||
| + | |||
| + | In Desmodium gyrans, or the telegraph plant, Bose found that if the | ||
| + | cut end of a detached leaflet was dipped in water in a bent glass tube | ||
| + | it r**ecovered from the shock of its amputation and began to pulsate anew**. | ||
| + | Was this not like an excised animal heart which can be kept beating in | ||
| + | Ringer' | ||
| + | is lowered and starts again when pressure is raised, Bose found the same | ||
| + | was true for the pulsation of the Desmodium when the sap pressure was | ||
| + | increased or decreased. | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | --- One day Bose found | ||
| + | that when all motion stopped in his plant, it suddenly shuddered in a | ||
| + | way reminiscent of the death spasm in animals. To determine exactly | ||
| + | the critical temperature at which death occurred, he invented a **moro- | ||
| + | graph, or death recorder.** While many plants met their end at sixty | ||
| + | degrees centigrade, individual plants exhibited variations depending on | ||
| + | their previous histories and ages. If their power of resistance was artificially depressed by fatigue, or poison, the death spasm would take place | ||
| + | with temperatures as low as twenty-three degrees Centigrade. At death, | ||
| + | the plant threw off a huge electrical force. **Five hundred green peas | ||
| + | could develop five hundred volts,** said Bose, **enough to fulminate a cook | ||
| + | but for the fact that peas are seldom connected in series.** | ||
| + | Though it had been thought that plants liked unlimited quantities of | ||
| + | carbon dioxide, Bose found that too much of this gas could suffocate | ||
| + | them, but that they could then be revived, just like animals, with oxygen. | ||
| + | Like human beings, **plants became intoxicated when given shots of | ||
| + | whiskey or gin,** swayed like any barroom drunkard, passed out, and | ||
| + | eventually revived, with definite signs of a hangover. These findings | ||
| + | together with hundreds of other data were published in two massive | ||
| + | volumes in 1906 and 1907. Pg 94 | ||
| + | |||
| + | Boses invention the crescograph not only produced a ten-thousand-fold magnification of movement, | ||
| + | far beyond the powers of the strongest microscope, but could automati- | ||
| + | cally record the rate of growth of plants and their changes in a period | ||
| + | as short as a minute. | ||
| + | Bose showed the remarkable fact that in countless plants, **growth proceeds in rhythmic pulses.** each pulse exhibiting' | ||
| + | rapid uplift and then a slower partial recoil of about a fourth the distance | ||
| + | gained. The pulses in Calcutta averaged about three per minute. By | ||
| + | watching the progress of the movement on the chart Bose found that **growth in some plants could be retarded and even | ||
| + | halted by merely touching them, and that in others rough handling | ||
| + | stimulated growth, especially if they were sluggish and morose.** Pg 99 | ||
| + | |||
| + | ---The roots of plants are called " | ||
| + | the soil. Leaves turn to light because they are " | ||
| + | bending against the flow of a stream " | ||
| + | is known as its " | ||
| + | | ||
| + | // | ||
| + | related libarynth topic// | ||
| + | |||
| + | ---Bose now in retirement summud his scientific philosophy: | ||
| + | “Is there any possible relation between our own life and that of the plant | ||
| + | world? The question is not one of speculation but of actual demonstration | ||
| + | by some method that is unimpeachable. This means that we should | ||
| + | abandon all our preconceptions, | ||
| + | absolutely groundless and contrary to facts. The final appeal must be | ||
| + | made to the plant itself and no evidence should be accepted unless **it bears | ||
| + | the plant' | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==== The Metamorphosis of Plants ==== | ||
| + | < | ||
| + | ----------------------------- | ||
| + | |||
| + | === related libarynth topics === | ||
| + | * [[plant perception]] | ||
| + | * [[plant movement]] | ||
| + | * [[HPI]] | ||
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