I don't know yet. And I know lots of kids do that, but I was especially ROBERT: I'm sorry? And not too far away from this tree, underground, there is a water pipe. So she decided to conduct her experiment. One time, the plant literally flew out of the pot and upended with roots exposed. JAD: It's like every time I close my eyes, you're coming at it from a different direction. JAD: Yeah, absolutely. I know, I know. Yeah. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah, I know. ROBERT: Is your dog objecting to my analysis? I'm a professor emeritus of plant biology at UC Santa Cruz. I think there is something like a nervous system in the forest, because it's the same sort of large network of nodes sending signals to one another. ROBERT: Then she placed the fan right next to the light so that MONICA GAGLIANO: The light and the fan were always coming from the same direction. I am the blogger of The Artful Amoeba at Scientific American. No, no, no, no, no. If I want to be a healthy tree and reach for the sky, then I need -- I need rocks in me somehow. And it can reach these little packets of minerals and mine them. ROBERT: She says it was like this moment where she realizes, "Oh, my God! SUZANNE SIMARD: So we know that Douglas fir will take -- a dying Douglas fir will send carbon to a neighboring Ponderosa pine. ROBERT: Wait a second. Wait a second. Five, four, three, two, one, drop! ], [ROY HALLING: Jamie York is our Senior Producer. So you -- if you would take away the fish, the trees would be, like, blitzed. And therefore she might, in the end, see something that no one else would see. One of the spookiest examples of this Suzanne mentioned, is an experiment that she and her team did where they discovered that if a forest is warming up, which is happening all over the world, temperatures are rising, you have trees in this forest that are hurting. say they're very curious, but want to see these experiments repeated. Or it's just the vibration of the pipe that's making it go toward it. And when you measure them, like one study we saw found up to seven miles of this little threading What is this thing? We dropped. Sep 28, 2020 - Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. There's this whole other world right beneath my feet. If the -- if the tube system is giving the trees the minerals, how is it getting it, the minerals? SUZANNE SIMARD: Yeah. So just give me some birds. And the idea was, she wanted to know like, once the radioactive particles were in the tree, what happens next? Did Jigs emerge? They can also send warning signals through the fungus. MONICA GAGLIANO: Picasso, enough of that now. [laughs]. Well, I asked Suzanne about that. JAD: The plants -- the plants stopped -- what is it they did? And we can move it up, and we can drop it. ALVIN UBELL: How much longer? Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of Science and Technology in the modern world. It's kind of like a cold glass sitting on your desk, and there's always a puddle at the bottom. Jennifer told Latif and I about another role that these fungi play. So the question is 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? He was a, not a wiener dog. Or it could be like, "Okay, I'm not doing so well, so I'm gonna hide this down here in my ceiling.". Maybe not with the helmet, but yeah. That's amazing and fantastic. And they still remembered. JENNIFER FRAZER: But we don't know. Into which she put these sensitive plants. Anyone who's ever had a plant in a window knows that. And when I came on the scene in 19 -- the 1980s as a forester, we were into industrial, large-scale clear-cutting in western Canada. Science writer Jen Frazer gave us kind of the standard story. 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. 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. Instead of eating the fungus, it turns out the fungus ate them. You got somewhere to go? They look just like mining tunnels. Birds, please. ROBERT: And when you measure them, like one study we saw found up to seven miles of this little threading JAD: What is this thing? And if you just touch it ROBERT: You can actually watch this cascade ROBERT: Where all the leaves close in, like do do do do do do. Her use of metaphor. I mean, I see the dirt. Now, can you -- can you imagine what we did wrong? Sorry! PETER LANDGREN: Look at that. Monica's work has actually gotten quite a bit of attention from other plant biologists. ROBERT: Smaller than an eyelash. LINCOLN TAIZ: I think you can be open-minded but still objective. The water is still in there. And then Monica would ROBERT: Just about, you know, seven or eight inches. ROBERT: In the Richard Attenborough version, if you want to look on YouTube, he actually takes a nail RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH: This pin will give you an idea. So today we have a triptych of experiments about plants. The next one goes, "Uh-oh." JAD: So today we have a triptych of experiments about plants. Do you really need a brain to sense the world around you? So otherwise they can't photosynthesize. 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. All right. I don't know yet. JAD: That apparently -- jury's still out -- are going to make me rethink my stance on plants. This is the plant and pipe mystery. Well, okay. Because I have an appointment. I know. Can the tree feel you ripping the roots out like that? Which by the way, is definitely not a plant. ROBERT: This is the fungus. ROBERT: Okay. And we can move it up, and we can drop it. ROBERT: So here's what she did. ROBERT: Now the plants if they were truly dumb, they'd go 50/50. let's do it! So I don't have an issue with that. I was like, "Oh, my God! But it was originally done with -- with a dog. It just kept curling. In my brain. They need light to grow. Don't interrupt. ROBERT: Monica's work has actually gotten quite a bit of attention from other plant biologists. They can go north, south, east, west, whatever. ALVIN UBELL: How much longer? They learned something. JENNIFER FRAZER: I do find it magical. ROBERT: This happens to a lot of people. All in all, turns out one tree was connected to 47 other trees all around it. ROBERT: They're sort of flea-sized and they spend lots of time munching leaves on the forest floor. They learned something. And when you look at the map, what you see are circles sprouting lines and then connecting to other circles also sprouting lines. LINCOLN TAIZ: I think you can be open-minded but still objective. ], [JENNIFER FRAZER: This is Jennifer Frazer, and I'm a freelance science writer and blogger of The Artful Amoeba at Scientific American. MONICA GAGLIANO: Like a defensive mechanism. ], [JENNIFER FRAZER: Dylan Keefe is our Director of Sound Design. Never mind.". Apparently, she built some sort of apparatus. That's a parade I'll show up for. You need the nutrients that are in the soil. But what I do know is that the fact that the plant doesn't have a brain doesn't -- doesn't a priori say that the plants can't do something. It was like, Oh, I might disturb my plants!" JAD: So today we have a triptych of experiments about plants. When they did this, they saw that a lot of the springtails that had the tubes inside them were still alive. JENNIFER FRAZER: Anyone who's ever had a plant in a window knows that. JENNIFER FRAZER: Apparently she built some sort of apparatus. So light is -- if you shine light on a plant you're, like, feeding it? And after not a whole lot of drops the plant, she noticed, stopped closing its leaves. The fact that humans do it in a particular way, it doesn't mean that everyone needs to do it in that way to be able to do it in the first place. JENNIFER FRAZER: Then he would bring them the meat and he would ring a bell. Well, it depends on who you ask. JAD: That is cool. I'm not making this up. There was a healthier community when they were mixed and I wanted to figure out why. 36:59. But We did catch up with her a few weeks later. SUZANNE SIMARD: Like, nitrogen and phosphorus. Again. [laughs]. ROBERT: Peering down at the plants under the red glow of her headlamp. ALVIN UBELL: Testing one, two. [laughs] When I write a blog post, my posts that get the least traffic guaranteed are the plant posts. So I'd seal the plant, the tree in a plastic bag, and then I would inject gas, so tagged with a -- with an isotope, which is radioactive. Now the plants if they were truly dumb they'd go 50/50. And I do that in my brain. I've been looking around lately, and I know that intelligence is not unique to humans. Little seatbelt for him for the ride down. So she's got her plants in the pot, and we're going to now wait to see what happens. Thud. by Radiolab Follow. ], This is Jennifer Frazer, and I'm a freelance science writer and blogger of The Artful Amoeba at Scientific American. Me first. And every day that goes by, I have less of an issue from the day before. 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 called feeder roots. And then someone has to count. ROBERT: But after five days, she found that 80% of the time, the plants went -- or maybe chose -- to head toward the dry pipe that has water in it. This way there is often more questions than answers, but that's part of the fun as well. JENNIFER FRAZER: Right? And so they have this trading system with trees. SUZANNE SIMARD: Basically expanding it from a kind of a column of a pit to something that's -- we could actually grab onto his front legs and pull him out. Testing one, two. Because what she does next is three days later, she takes these plants back into the lab. ], [JENNIFER FRAZER: Bethel Habte, Tracie Hunte, Matt Kielty ], [ALVIN UBELL: Matt Kielly. It's a very biased view that humans have in particular towards others. So Pavlov started by getting some dogs and some meat and a bell. Turns the fan on, turns the light on, and the plant turns and leans that way. And then all the other ones go in the same direction. JENNIFER FRAZER: And he would repeat this. And, you know, my job was to track how these new plantations would grow. So it wasn't touching the dirt at all. MONICA GAGLIANO: It's a very biased view that humans have in particular towards others. Are going to make me rethink my stance on plants. No matter how amazing I think that the results are, for some reason people just don't think plants are interesting. /locations/california/culver-city/5399-sepulveda-blvd-bank-atm/ Because what she does next is three days later, she takes these plants back into the lab. I mean, I see the dirt. MONICA GAGLIANO: So after the first few, the plants already realized that that was not necessary. SUZANNE SIMARD: Yeah, he was a curious dog. Then she takes the little light and the little fan and moves them to the other side of the plant. That was my reaction. Liquid rocks. I don't know yet. MONICA GAGLIANO: My reaction was like, "Oh ****!" And if you don't have one, by default you can't do much in general. 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