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. 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. They're not experiencing extra changes, for example. ROBERT: They shade each other. JENNIFER FRAZER: They're called springtails, because a lot of them have a little organ on the back that they actually can kind of like deploy and suddenly -- boing! Reviews. Again, if you imagine that the pot, my experimental pot. 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. Just for example Let's say it's -- times are good. ROBERT: But the drop was just shocking and sudden enough for the little plant to ROBERT: Then Monica hoists the plant back up again and drops it again. Episodes. LATIF: It's like Snow White and The Seven Tubes or something. ROBERT: Give it to the new -- well, that's what she saying. Monica's work has actually gotten quite a bit of attention from other plant biologists. I can scream my head off if I want to. Douglas fir, birch and cedar. And I met a plant biologist who's gonna lead that parade. I can scream my head off if I want to. It's a very biased view that humans have in particular towards others. It's not leaking. Again, science writer Jennifer Frazer. A little while back, I had a rather boisterous conversation with these two guys. 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. ROBERT: And some of them, this is Lincoln Taiz LINCOLN TAIZ: I'm a professor emeritus of plant biology at UC Santa Cruz. 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. It was like -- it was like a huge network. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah. Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, we dig into the work of evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, who turns our brain-centered worldview on its head through a series of clever . He uses it to train his border www.npr.org Before you begin to think that this is weird science, stop. ROBERT: What kind of minerals does a tree need? ALVIN UBELL: And I've been in the construction industry ever since I'm about 16 years old. 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. ROBERT: But once again I kind of wondered if -- since the plant doesn't have a brain or even neurons to connect the idea of light and wind or whatever, where would they put that information? The plants have to keep pulling their leaves up and they just get tired. 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. 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. Would they stay in the tree, or would they go down to the roots? It's almost as if these plants -- it's almost as if they know where our pipes are. I can scream my head off if I want to. ROBERT: Instead of eating the fungus, it turns out the fungus ate them. Jad and Robert, they are spli They play with sound and story in a way that's incredibly intriguing, I was instantly hooked with More Perfect. Finally, one time he did not bring the meat, but he rang the bell. Or maybe it's the fungus under the ground is kind of like a broker and decides who gets what. Actually, Monica's dog leads perfectly into her third experiment, which again will be with a plant. Same as the Pavlov. So we are going to meet a beautiful little plant called a mimosa pudica, which is a perfectly symmetrical plant with leaves on either side of a central stem. 0:00. ROBERT: Oh! LARRY UBELL: It's kind of like a cold glass sitting on your desk, and there's always a puddle at the bottom. 36:59. To try to calculate how much springtail nitrogen is traveling back to the tree. ROBERT: Remember I told you how trees make sugar? We are the principals of Accurate Building Inspectors of Brooklyn, New York. She went into the forest, got some trees. This happens to a lot of people. These guys are actually doing it." So that's where these -- the scientists from Princeton come in: Peter, Sharon and Aatish. I mean, what? And so I was really excited. And Jigs at some point just runs off into the woods, just maybe to chase a rabbit. ROBERT: She thinks that they somehow remembered all those drops and it never hurt, so they didn't fold up any more. You got the plant to associate the fan with food. It was like -- it was like a huge network. This -- this actually happened to me. Oh, one more thing. So its resources, its legacy will move into the mycorrhizal network into neighboring trees. 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. It's like a savings account? 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. Science writer Jen Frazer gave us kind of the standard story. ROBERT: So there is some water outside of the pipe. He's the only springtail with a trench coat and a fedora. ], [JENNIFER FRAZER: Our staff includes Simon Adler, Brenna Farrow, David Gebel. Yes, we are related. She's a forestry professor at the University of British Columbia. ROBERT: Connecting your house to the main city water line that's in the middle of the street. If a nosy deer happens to bump into it, the mimosa plant Curls all its leaves up against its stem. JAD: Yeah, absolutely. And again. Like, they don't have ears or a brain or anything like, they couldn't hear like we hear. MONICA GAGLIANO: And it's good it was Sunday. AATISH BHATIA: All right. This episode was produced by Annie McEwen. 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. So we went back to Monica. Fan first, light after. And they're digging and digging and digging. Are going to make me rethink my stance on plants. JENNIFER FRAZER: From a particular direction. Because I have an appointment. ", So the deer's like, "Oh, well. And the tubes branch and sometimes they reconnect. Turns the fan on, turns the light on, and the plant turns and leans that way. Again. It's an integral part of DNA. MONICA GAGLIANO: Light is obviously representing dinner. But they do have root hairs. It involves a completely separate organism I haven't mentioned yet. But instead of dogs, she had pea plants in a dark room. The bell, the meat and the salivation. ROBERT: So maybe could you just describe it just briefly just what you did? But then, scientists did an experiment where they gave some springtails some fungus to eat. But we are in the home inspection business. In this conversation. ], Dylan Keefe is our Director of Sound Design. ROBERT: I think that's fair. JENNIFER FRAZER: If you look at these particles under the microscope, you can see the little tunnels. MONICA GAGLIANO: Light is obviously representing dinner. And she says this time they relaxed almost immediately. His name is Roy Halling. ROBERT: So these trees were basically covered with bags that were then filled with radioactive gas. Can Robert get Jad to join the march? And there was a lot of skepticism at the time. ROBERT: And the classic case of this is if you go back a few centuries ago, someone noticed that plants have sex. So Monica moves the fans to a new place one more time. SUZANNE SIMARD: Yes, that seems to be what happens. Can you make your own food? ROBERT: They stopped folding up. And all of a sudden, one of them says, "Oh, oh, oh, oh! That's a parade I'll show up for. No, I don't because she may come up against it, people who think that intelligence is unique to humans. Which has, you know, for dogs has nothing to do with meat. Well, I asked Suzanne about that. ROBERT: So what they're saying is even if she's totally sealed the pipe so there's no leak at all, the difference in temperature will create some condensation on the outside. I mean, can you remember what you were doing a month ago? And while it took us a while to see it, apparently these little threads in the soil. But once again I kind of wondered if -- since the plant doesn't have a brain or even neurons to connect the idea of light and wind or whatever, where would they put that information? And I need a bird, a lot of birds, actually. The tree has a lot of sugar. 526; 4 years ago; Smarty Plants by Radiolab. ROBERT: They're father and son. They run out of energy. JAD: So they just went right for the MP3 fake water, not even the actual water? ROBERT: But Monica says what she does do is move around the world with a general feeling of ROBERT: What if? Close. Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. And what she discovered is that all these trees, all these trees that were of totally different species were sharing their food underground. And not too far away from this tree, underground, there is a water pipe. I don't know if that was the case for your plants. JAD: That is cool. But it didn't happen. ROBERT: 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. RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH: It's the equivalent of a human being jumping over the Eiffel Tower. Do you really need a brain to sense the world around you? I think if I move on to the next experiment from Monica, you're going to find it a little bit harder to object to it. Well, it depends on who you ask. This is not so good" signal through the network. ROBERT: Had indeed turned and moved toward the fan, stretching up their little leaves as if they were sure that at any moment now light would arrive. Ring, meat, eat. AATISH BHATIA: All right. There was some kind of benefit from the birch to the fur. So we're really -- like this is -- we're really at the very beginning of this. So today we have a triptych of experiments about plants. It's okay, puppy. Her use of metaphor. They still did not close when she dropped them. And after not a whole lot of drops, the plant, she noticed, stopped closing its leaves. So the roots can go either left or to the right. Hey, it's okay. Oh, one more thing. So what does the tree do? 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. ROBERT: say they're very curious, but want to see these experiments repeated. Like so -- and I think that, you know, the whole forest then, there's an intelligence there that's beyond just the species. Now, can you -- can you imagine what we did wrong? You need the nutrients that are in the soil. ROBERT: She took that notion out of the garden into her laboratory. Well, it depends on who you ask. Like, how can a plant -- how does a plant do that? ROBERT: Five, four, three, two, one, drop! Start of message. This is like metaphor is letting in the light as opposed to shutting down the blinds. Have you hugged your houseplant today? Or it's just the vibration of the pipe that's making it go toward it. They have to -- have to edit in this together. So she decided to conduct her experiment. And I do that in my brain. No. On the outside of the pipe. We dropped. Imagine towering trees to your left and to your right. So they might remember even for a much longer time than 28 days. ROBERT: That is correct. Exactly. So we went back to Monica. Here's the water.". ROBERT: 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. Like, I don't understand -- learning, as far as I understand it, is something that involves memory and storage. Seasonally. And we can move it up, and we can drop it. ], [ROY HALLING: Jamie York is our Senior Producer. Gone. They're not experiencing extra changes, for example. ROBERT: Truth is, I think on this point she's got a -- she's right. Maybe each root is -- is like a little ear for the plant. So I don't have an issue with that. Here's the water.". That's a parade I'll show up for. They need light to grow. Because what she does next is three days later, she takes these plants back into the lab. And of course we had to get Jigs out. But I wonder if her using these metaphors is perhaps a very creative way of looking at -- looking at a plant, and therefore leads her to make -- make up these experiments that those who wouldn't think the way she would would ever make up. Picasso! There was a healthier community when they were mixed and I wanted to figure out why. ], Maria Matasar-Padilla is our Managing Director. MONICA GAGLIANO: Exactly. They shade each other out. And she goes into that darkened room with all the pea plants. ROBERT: I have even -- I can go better than even that. ROBERT: That would be sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals-sugar-minerals. Well, okay. She's working in the timber industry at the time. Jigs had provided this incredible window for me, you know, in this digging escapade to see how many different colors they were, how many different shapes there were, that they were so intertwined. They were actually JENNIFER FRAZER: Tubes. Because the only reason why the experiment turned out to be 28 days is because I ran out of time. ROBERT: So I think what she would argue is that we kind of proved her point. Oh, so this is, like, crucial. Wait a second. JAD: Yeah, and hopefully not be liquefied by the fungus beneath us. Pics! But we don't know. Each one an ounce, an ounce, an ounce, an ounce, an ounce. So, okay. ROBERT: So you just did what Pavlov did to a plant. No, I actually, like even this morning it's already like poof! So you are related and you're both in the plumbing business? SUZANNE SIMARD: I know. And then Monica would Just about, you know, seven or eight inches. So there is some water outside of the pipe. Was it possible that maybe the plants correctly responded by not opening, because something really mad was happening around it and it's like, "This place is not safe.". ROBERT: She took that notion out of the garden into her laboratory. If I want to be a healthy tree and reach for the sky, then I need -- I need rocks in me somehow. ROBERT: Huh. So what they're saying is even if she's totally sealed the pipe so there's no leak at all, the difference in temperature will create some condensation on the outside. But also SUZANNE SIMARD: The other important thing we figured out is that, as those trees are injured and dying, they'll dump their carbon into their neighbors. From Tree to Shining Tree. LARRY UBELL: No, I don't because she may come up against it, people who think that intelligence is unique to humans. JAD: No, it's because it's like every time I close my eyes, you're coming at it from a different direction. ROBERT: And we dropped it once, and twice. The next one goes, "Uh-oh." Smarty Plants Radiolab | Last.fm Read about Smarty Plants by Radiolab and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. And she wondered whether that was true. This way there is often more questions than answers, but that's part of the fun as well. SUZANNE SIMARD: Yes, we don't normally ascribe intelligence to plants, and plants are not thought to have brains. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah. I think if I move on to the next experiment from Monica, you're going to find it a little bit harder to object to it. I mean, this is going places. Yeah, plants really like light, you know? 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. Yeah. Just read about plants having brains and doing things that we honestly do not expect them. And she goes on to argue that had we been a little bit more steady and a little bit more consistent, the plants would have learned and would have remembered the lesson. It is like a bank! They would salivate and then eat the meat. ROBERT: Is your dog objecting to my analysis? OUR PODCASTSSUPPORT US Smarty Plants LISTEN Download February 13, 2018 ( Robert Krulwich All in all, turns out one tree was connected to 47 other trees all around it. Just the sound of it? And for the meat substitute, she gave each plant little bit of food. Never mind. I'm a research associate professor at the University of Sydney. Like, the tree was, like, already doing that stuff by itself, but it's the fungus that's doing that stuff? In the podcast episode Smarty Plants, the hosts talk about whether or not you need a brain to sense the world around you; they shared a few different anecdotes, . And it was almost like, let's see how much I have to stretch it here before you forget. MONICA GAGLIANO: My reaction was, "Oh ****!" It involves a completely separate organism I haven't mentioned yet. ROBERT: Oh, well that's a miracle. And she goes on to argue that had we been a little bit more steady and a little bit more consistent, the plants would have learned and would have remembered the lesson. I don't know where you were that day. Like for example, my plants were all in environment-controlled rooms, which is not a minor detail. This way there is often more questions than answers, but that's part of the fun as well. He's looking up at us quite scared and very unhappy that he was covered in And toilet paper. JENNIFER FRAZER: So what do we have in our ears that we use to hear sound? MONICA GAGLIANO: The idea was to drop them again just to see, like, the difference between the first time you learn something and the next time. ROBERT: And he starts digging with his rake at the base of this tree. Can you -- will you soften your roots so that I can invade your root system?" ROBERT: We, as you know, built your elevator. The last kind of part of the root gets tangled just around the edge. Thanks to Jennifer Frazer who helped us make sense of all this. Are you, like, aggressively looking around for -- like, do you wake up in the morning saying, "Now what can I get a plant to do that reminds me of my dog, or reminds me of a bear, or reminds me of a bee?". Thanks to Jennifer Frazer who helped us make sense of all this. Well, some of them can first of all, and big deal. LARRY UBELL: All right, if she's going to do this experiment, most likely she's going to use cold water. 2016. ROBERT: And they're digging and digging and digging. Jennifer told Latif and I about another role that these fungi play. And is it as dramatic in the opposite direction? It didn't seem to be learning anything. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah. And the salivation equivalent was the tilt of the plant? And if you go to too many rock concerts, you can break these hairs and that leads to permanent hearing loss, which is bad. I was like, "Oh, my God! Well, some of them can first of all, and big deal. We dropped. We've all seen houseplants do that, right? SUZANNE SIMARD: When I was a little kid, I would be in the forest and I'd just eat the forest floor. MONICA GAGLIANO: Would the plant do the same? 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? Connecting your house to the main city water line that's in the middle of the street. ROBERT: That is actually a clue in what turns out to be a deep, deep mystery. They're not experiencing extra changes, for example. I mean, it's -- like, when a plant bends toward sunlight. But I wonder if her using these metaphors is perhaps a very creative way of looking at -- looking at a plant, and therefore leads her to make -- make up these experiments that those who wouldn't think the way she would would ever make up. Biologist who 's gon na lead that parade even that were that.! 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