They have to -- have to edit in this together. ROBERT: Just for example. But we don't know. JENNIFER FRAZER: An anti-predator reaction? Radiolab - Smarty Plants . Or maybe slower? No boink anymore. And so of course, that was only the beginning. Just a boring set of twigs. And it was almost like, let's see how much I have to stretch it here before you forget. So she takes the plants, she puts them into the parachute drop, she drops them. But over the next two decades, we did experiment after experiment after experiment that verified that story. ROBERT: So you are related and you're both in the plumbing business? And so we are under the impression or I would say the conviction that the brain is the center of the universe, and -- and if you have a brain and a nervous system you are good and you can do amazing stuff. Peering down at the plants under the red glow of her headlamp. We showed one of these plants to him and to a couple of his colleagues, Sharon De La Cruz ROBERT: Because we wanted them to help us recreate Monica's next experiment. ROBERT: I do want to go back, though, to -- for something like learning, like, I don't understand -- learning, as far as I understand it, is something that involves memory and storage. Parsons' Observational Practices Lab Talking About Seeing Symposium. OUR PODCASTSSUPPORT US Smarty Plants LISTEN Download February 13, 2018 ( Robert Krulwich ROBERT: So here's what she did. Maybe not with the helmet, but yeah. And to me, here are three more reasons that you can say, "No, really! ROBERT: Science writer Jen Frazer gave us kind of the standard story. And she goes into that darkened room with all the pea plants. So, okay. What was your reaction when you saw this happen? So -- so carbon will move from that dying tree. Picasso! So we know that Douglas fir will take -- a dying Douglas fir will send carbon to a neighboring Ponderosa pine. Never mind. Like, would they figure it out faster this time? Smarty Plants. They run out of energy. MONICA GAGLIANO: I wonder if that was maybe a bit too much. It'd be all random. ROBERT: So the plants are now, you know, buckled in, minding their own business. What's its job? JENNIFER FRAZER: Then he would bring them the meat and he would ring a bell. Just for example Let's say it's -- times are good. ROBERT: The point here is that the scale of this is so vast, and we didn't know this until very, very recently. One time, the plant literally flew out of the pot and upended with roots exposed. Now, can you -- can you imagine what we did wrong? I mean, I -- it's a kind of Romanticism, I think. Give it to the new -- well, that's what she saying. He's the only springtail with a trench coat and a fedora. And every day that goes by, I have less of an issue from the day before. ROBERT: Five, four, three, two, one, drop! Plants are complex and ancient organisms. And it was almost like, let's see how much I have to stretch it here before you forget. Wait a second. ROBERT: What kind of creature is this thing? ], Test the outer edges of what you think you know. It just kept curling and curling. MONICA GAGLIANO: Picasso, enough of that now. It's 10 o'clock and I have to go. The bell, the meat and the salivation. Just read about plants having brains and doing things that we honestly do not expect them. Five, four, three, two, one, drop! It's almost as if the forest is acting as an organism itself. Monica says what she does do is move around the world with a general feeling of What if? Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, wedig into the work of evolutionaryecologist Monica Gagliano, who turns ourbrain-centered worldview on its head through a series of clever experiments that show plants doing things we never would've imagined. LINCOLN TAIZ: Yes. So here's what she did. ROBERT: So light is -- if you shine light on a plant you're, like, feeding it? Maybe just a tenth the width of your eyelash. It's as if the individual trees were somehow thinking ahead to the needs of the whole forest. JENNIFER FRAZER: They had learned to associate the sound of the bell ROBERT: Which has, you know, for dogs has nothing to do with meat. LARRY UBELL: I'm not giving my age. They can go north, south, east, west, whatever. Big thanks to Aatish Bhatia, to Sharon De La Cruz and to Peter Landgren at Princeton University's Council on Science and Technology. ROBERT: And I met a plant biologist who's gonna lead that parade. Yeah. Like, two percent or 0.00000001 percent? ROBERT: Truth is, I think on this point she's got a -- she's right. I don't know if that was the case for your plants. Okay. And it can reach these little packets of minerals and mine them. JAD: It was curling each time when it ROBERT: Every time. He's on the right track. And it's more expensive. So it's not that it couldn't fold up, it's just that during the dropping, it learned that it didn't need to. So it wasn't touching the dirt at all. ROBERT: Ring, meat, eat. Nothing happened at all. Jad and Robert, they are spli They will send out a "Oh, no! On one side, instead of the pipe with water, she attaches an MP3 player with a little speaker playing a recording of And then on the other side, Monica has another MP3 player with a speaker. And again. So we're really -- like this is -- we're really at the very beginning of this. I mean, I think there's something to that. No, it's far more exciting than that. Well, people have been measuring this in different forests and ecosystems around the world, and the estimate is anywhere from 20 to 80 percent will go into the ground. When we last left off, I'm just saying you just said intelligence. That's a parade I'll show up for. ROBERT: And you can actually see this happen. So she's saying they remembered for almost a month? ROBERT: Jennifer says that what the tubes do is they worm their way back and forth through the soil until they bump into some pebbles. by Radiolab Follow. It's soaks in sunshine, and it takes CO2, carbon dioxide, and it's splits it in half. 37 minutes Posted Jul 8, 2021 at 7:35 am. This is the headphones? Sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh. I don't want that.". SUZANNE SIMARD: Yeah. We went and looked for ourselves. The tree will wrap its roots around that pipe. Like, how can a plant -- how does a plant do that? ALVIN UBELL: The glass is not broken. And not too far away from this tree, underground, there is a water pipe. ANNIE MCEWEN: What was your reaction when you saw this happen? It spits out the O2. I was like, "Oh, my God! No, I don't because she may come up against it, people who think that intelligence is unique to humans. Maybe there's some kind of signal? She's done three experiments, and I think if I tell you about what she has done, you -- even you -- will be provoked into thinking that plants can do stuff you didn't imagine, dream they could do. I'm not making this up. ROBERT: Let us say you have a yard in front of your house. I mean, I think there's something to that. ], Dylan Keefe is our Director of Sound Design. ROBERT: And with these two stimuli, she put the plants, the little pea plants through a kind of training regime. My name is Monica Gagliano. They still remembered. So you're like a metaphor cop with a melty heart. And it's that little, little bit of moisture that the plant will somehow sense. And so of course, that was only the beginning. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah. They can't take up CO2. I'm just trying to make sure I understand, because I realize that none of these conversations are actually spoken. But no, they're all linked to each other! Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. In this case, a little blue LED light. ROBERT: So you can -- you can see this is like a game of telephone. A little while back, I had a rather boisterous conversation with these two guys. And now, if you fast-forward roughly 30 years, she then makes a discovery that I find kind of amazing. And if you go to too many rock concerts, you can break these hairs and that leads to permanent hearing loss, which is bad. ROBERT: Okay. But still. If the -- if the tube system is giving the trees the minerals, how is it getting it, the minerals? No question there. And then I needed to -- the difficulty I guess, of the experiment was to find something that will be quite irrelevant and really meant nothing to the plant to start with. So the -- this branching pot thing. So if a beetle were to invade the forest, the trees tell the next tree over, "Here come the --" like Paul Revere, sort of? So it wasn't touching the dirt at all. And the tree gets the message, and it sends a message back and says, "Yeah, I can do that.". It's just getting started. All right. They're sort of flea-sized and they spend lots of time munching leaves on the forest floor. It's not leaking. But the Ubells have noticed that even if a tree is 10 or 20, 30 yards away from the water pipe, for some reason the tree roots creep with uncanny regularity straight toward the water pipe. That was my reaction. So they just went right for the MP3 fake water, not even the actual water? No. ROBERT: And he starts digging with his rake at the base of this tree. Remember that the roots of these plants can either go one direction towards the sound of water in a pipe, or the other direction to the sound of silence. JENNIFER FRAZER: Finally, one time he did not bring the meat, but he rang the bell. If you get too wrapped up in your poetic metaphor, you're very likely to be misled and to over-interpret the data. But the drop was just shocking and sudden enough for the little plant to Do its reflex defense thing. MONICA GAGLIANO: So, you know, I'm in the dark. Yeah, it might run out of fuel. An expert. Walker Wolff. ROBERT: So there is some water outside of the pipe. So we're up to experiment two now, are we not? JENNIFER FRAZER: And his idea was to see if he could condition these dogs to associate that food would be coming from the sound of a bell. She says the tree can only suck up what it needs through these -- mostly through the teeny tips of its roots, and that's not enough bandwidth. MONICA GAGLIANO: Would the plant do the same? Start of message. Picasso! Here's the water.". ROBERT: Oh, well that's a miracle. They run out of energy. And it's that little, little bit of moisture that the plant will somehow sense. And you don't see it anywhere. Can Robert get Jad to join the march? Okay? The water is still in there. Smarty Plants Radiolab | Last.fm Read about Smarty Plants by Radiolab and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. ", So the deer's like, "Oh, well. Minerals from the soil. And it's more expensive. She took that notion out of the garden into her laboratory. What -- I forgot to ask you something important. As soon as we labeled them, we used the Geiger counter to -- and ran it up and down the trees, and we could tell that they were hot, they were boo boo boo boo boo, right? Don't interrupt. ROBERT: Connecting your house to the main city water line that's in the middle of the street. I mean, I think there's something to that. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org]. And again. There's not a leak in the glass. ROBERT: It won't be a metaphor in just a moment. Yes. And every day that goes by, I have less of an issue from the day before. It's almost as if these plants -- it's almost as if they know where our pipes are. The bell, the meat and the salivation. She's working in the timber industry at the time. Let me just back up for a second so that you can -- to set the scene for you. So no plants were actually hurt in this experiment. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah, tested it in my lab. Oh, so it says to the newer, the healthier trees, "Here's my food. I don't know yet. I don't know where you were that day. ALVIN UBELL: Testing one, two. Never mind.". WHRO is Hampton Roads' local NPR / PBS Station. To remember? Five, four, three, two, one, drop! ROBERT: But instead of dogs, she had pea plants in a dark room. Why waste hot water? Thud. So I don't have an issue with that. ROBERT: These sensitive hairs he argues, would probably be able to feel that tiny difference. JENNIFER FRAZER: So what do we have in our ears that we use to hear sound? MONICA GAGLIANO: I created these horrible contraptions. They secrete acid. ROBERT: She took some plants, put them in a pot that restricted the roots so they could only go in one of just two directions, toward the water pipe or away from the water pipe. ROBERT: Of the tree's sugar goes down to the mushroom team? We are the principals of Accurate Building Inspectors of Brooklyn, New York. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org]. But what -- how would a plant hear something? ROBERT: Five, four, three, two, one, drop! ALVIN UBELL: If you look at a root under a microscope, what you see is all these thousands of feelers like hairs on your head looking for water. Like, I say, it's early in the season. It was summertime. ROBERT: We're carefully examining the roots of this oak tree. Seasonally. Like so -- and I think that, you know, the whole forest then, there's an intelligence there that's beyond just the species. Does it threaten your sense of humanity that you depend for pretty much every single calorie you eat on a plant? Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. ROBERT: Then of course because it's the BBC, they take a picture of it. This is the plant and pipe mystery. And then all of a sudden, she says she looks down into the ground and she notices all around them where the soil has been cleared away there are roots upon roots upon roots in this thick, crazy tangle. Picture one of those parachute drops that they have at the -- at state fairs or amusement parks where you're hoisted up to the top. ROBERT: So now, they had the radioactive particles inside their trunks and their branches. My reaction was like, "Oh ****!" Of the tree's sugar goes down to the mushroom team? And then I needed to -- the difficulty I guess, of the experiment was to find something that will be quite irrelevant and really meant nothing to the plant to start with. They're one of our closest relatives, actually. They look just like mining tunnels. JAD: The plants have to keep pulling their leaves up and they just get tired. So the question is MONICA GAGLIANO: A plant that is quite far away from the actual pipe, how does it know which way to turn and grow its roots so that it can find the water? Picasso! They need light to grow. Why is this network even there? I think there are some cases where romanticizing something could possibly lead you to some interesting results. LARRY UBELL: All right, if she's going to do this experiment, most likely she's going to use cold water. When you go into a forest, you see a tree, a tall tree. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah, mimosa has been one of the pet plants, I guess, for many scientists for, like, centuries. 0:00. They somehow have a dye, and don't ask me how they know this or how they figured it out, but they have a little stain that they can put on the springtails to tell if they're alive or dead. Well, okay. ], [JENNIFER FRAZER: Bethel Habte, Tracie Hunte, Matt Kielty ], [ALVIN UBELL: Matt Kielly. Then we actually had to run four months of trials to make sure that, you know, that what we were seeing was not one pea doing it or two peas, but it was actually a majority. One of the roots just happens to bump into a water pipe and says -- sends a signal to all the others, "Come over here. Or maybe slower? ROBERT: Wait a second. No, it's because it's like every time I close my eyes, you're coming at it from a different direction. So I don't have a problem. I know -- I know you -- I know you don't. MONICA GAGLIANO: Or would just be going random? So no plants were actually hurt in this experiment. And we dropped it once, and twice. ], And Alvin Ubell. MONICA GAGLIANO: All of them know already what to do. Robert Krulwich. Is it, like -- is it a plant? I mean, I -- it's a kind of Romanticism, I think. You know, it goes back to anthropomorphizing plant behaviors. Like the bell for the dog. And I'm wondering whether Monica is gonna run into, as she tries to make plants more animal-like, whether she's just gonna run into this malice from the scientific -- I'm just wondering, do you share any of that? Well, I created these horrible contraptions. On one side, instead of the pipe with water, she attaches an MP3 player with a little speaker playing a recording of ROBERT: And then on the other side, Monica has another MP3 player with a speaker. There was some kind of benefit from the birch to the fur. What do we have in our ears that we use to hear Sound no were. These conversations are actually spoken time, the minerals feel that tiny difference just you! Was just shocking and sudden enough for the MP3 fake water, not even the water... 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radiolab smarty plants
