ALVIN UBELL: In a tangling of spaghetti-like, almost a -- and each one of those lines of spaghetti is squeezing a little bit. ROBERT: But she's got a little red headlamp on. 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? Now, can you -- can you imagine what we did wrong? Well, some of them can first of all, and big deal. ROBERT: I wanted to talk to them because, as building inspectors they -- there's something they see over and over and over. 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. You got the plant to associate the fan with food. ROBERT: Wait a second. ROBERT: So if all a tree could do was split air to get carbon, you'd have a tree the size of a tulip. Read about Smarty Plants by Radiolab and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. 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?". The bell, the meat and the salivation. 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. This is Roy Halling, researcher specializing in fungi at the New York Botanical Garden. Well, I created these horrible contraptions. We're just learning about them now, and they're so interesting. But they do have root hairs. ROBERT: Like, I don't understand -- learning, as far as I understand it, is something that involves memory and storage. But she had a kind of, maybe call it a Jigs-ian recollection. It's a family business. Ring, meat, eat. ], And Alvin Ubell. Yes. And we can move it up, and we can drop it. Monica's work has actually gotten quite a bit of attention from other plant biologists. So actually, I think you were very successful with your experiment. And then Monica would Just about, you know, seven or eight inches. ], Dylan Keefe is our Director of Sound Design. Yes, in a lot of cases it is the fungus. All right. Oh, one more thing. JAD: And is it as dramatic in the opposite direction? It's now the Wood Wide Web? Pulled out a is that a root of some sort? Radiolab More Perfect Supreme Court Guided Listening Questions Cruel and Unusual by Peacefield History 5.0 (8) $1.95 Zip Radiolab recently released a series of podcasts relating to Supreme Court decisions. I don't know. Again. JAD: From just bears throwing fish on the ground? And the tubes branch and sometimes they reconnect. Pretty much like the concept of Pavlov with his dog applied. That is actually a clue in what turns out to be a deep, deep mystery. Okay? So they didn't. And when you look at the map, what you see are circles sprouting lines and then connecting to other circles also sprouting lines. But still. Do you really need a brain to sense the world around you? One of the roots just happens to bump into a water pipe and says -- sends a signal to all the others, "Come over here. Well, I have one thing just out of curiosity As we were winding up with our home inspectors, Alvin and Larry Ubell, we thought maybe we should run this metaphor idea by them. Like the bell for the dog. ROBERT: All right, never mind. Well, okay. Or maybe slower? So no plants were actually hurt in this experiment. Ring, meat, eat. Are you bringing the plant parade again? Jennifer told Latif and I about another role that these fungi play. I mean, it's -- like, when a plant bends toward sunlight. They learned something. ROBERT: And this? Whatever. Special thanks to Dr. Teresa Ryan of the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Forestry, to our intern Stephanie Tam, to Roy Halling and the Bronx Botanical Garden, and to Stephenson Swanson there. Okay? Yeah, plants really like light, you know? So that's where these -- the scientists from Princeton come in: Peter, Sharon and Aatish. Like, two percent or 0.00000001 percent? ALVIN UBELL: Testing one, two. Then she takes the little light and the little fan and moves them to the other side of the plant. Her use of metaphor. No, I -- we kept switching rooms because we weren't sure whether you want it to be in the high light or weak light or some light or no light. Wait a second. And it's that little, little bit of moisture that the plant will somehow sense. ROBERT: What happened to you didn't happen to us. ROBERT: To try to calculate how much springtail nitrogen is traveling back to the tree. That there was a kind of a moral objection to thinking this way. You give me -- like, I want wind, birds, chipmunks Like, I'm not, like, your sound puppet here. Fan, light, lean. She's a forestry professor at the University of British Columbia. And if you go to too many rock concerts, you can break these hairs and that leads to permanent hearing loss, which is bad. We pulled Jigs out and we threw him in the lake with a great deal of yelping and cursing and swearing, and Jigs was cleaned off. And so I was really excited. 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. JAD: That is cool. ROBERT: But the drop was just shocking and sudden enough for the little plant to ROBERT: Do its reflex defense thing. I don't know. We dropped. And it's more expensive. That was my reaction. Same as the Pavlov. Liquid rocks. And moved around, but always matched in the same way together. Of the tree's sugar goes down to the mushroom team? How does it know which way to turn and grow its roots so that it can find the water? What was your reaction when you saw this happen? Jad and Robert, they are split on this one. It's now the Wood Wide Web? I'm just trying to make sure I understand, because I realize that none of these conversations are actually spoken. And it's good it was Sunday. ROBERT: They would salivate and then eat the meat. ROBERT: Oh! And lignin is full of nitrogen, but also compounds like nitrogen is important in DNA, right? Like, how can a plant -- how does a plant do that? ROBERT: So that voice belongs to Aatish Bhatia, who is with Princeton University's Council on Science and Technology. And it's more expensive. 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. Yes, we are related. Thud. So after the first few, the plants already realized that that was not necessary. [ANSWERING MACHINE: To play the message, press two. And the -- I'm gonna mix metaphors here, the webs it weaves. So they didn't. Like, can a tree stand up straight without minerals? Yeah, I know. And then they came back JENNIFER FRAZER: And they found that most of the springtails were dead. In this case, a little blue LED light. ROBERT: And the salivation equivalent was the tilt of the plant? He's got lots of questions about her research methods, but really his major complaint is -- is her language. And it was almost like, let's see how much I have to stretch it here before you forget. 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. They run out of energy. It's okay, puppy. JAD: We've all seen houseplants do that, right? You should definitely go out and check out her blog, The Artful Amoeba, especially to the posts, the forlorn ones about plants. AATISH BHATIA: So this is our plant dropper. Eventually over a period of time, it'll crack the pipe like a nutcracker. SUZANNE SIMARD: Like, nitrogen and phosphorus. No, I guess that I feel kind of good to say this. 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. Because if I let you go it's gonna be another 20 minutes until I get to talk. Picasso! 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. And after not a whole lot of drops the plant, she noticed, stopped closing its leaves. Because what she does next is three days later, she takes these plants back into the lab. SUZANNE SIMARD: Where we've all been, you know, doing our daily business. So you are related and you're both in the plumbing business? So she's saying they remembered for almost a month? ], [ROY HALLING: Matt Kielty, Robert Krulwich, Annie McEwen, Andy Mills, Latif Nasser, Malissa O'Donnell. Our store also offers Grooming, Training, Adoptions, Veterinary and Curbside Pickup. I mean again, it's a tree. 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. Or at the time actually, she was a very little girl who loved the outdoors. MONICA GAGLIANO: Pretty much like the concept of Pavlov with his dog applied. ROBERT: This is very like if you had a little helmet with a light on it. ROBERT: And he pokes it at this little springtail, and the springtail goes boing! ROBERT: No, I -- we kept switching rooms because we weren't sure whether you want it to be in the high light or weak light or some light or no light. I thought okay, so this is just stupid. ROBERT: Then of course because it's the BBC, they take a picture of it. In this conversation. MONICA GAGLIANO: I remember going in at the uni on a Sunday afternoon. Today, Robert drags Jad along ona parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. SUZANNE SIMARD: He was a, not a wiener dog. Or it's just the vibration of the pipe that's making it go toward it. 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? So this is our plant dropper. And I met a plant biologist who's gonna lead that parade. Jad and Robert, theyare split on this one. 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. ROBERT: And that's where the fungus comes in. LATIF: It's like a bank? Hi. ROBERT: So the roots can go either left or to the right. MONICA GAGLIANO: Exactly, which is pretty amazing. 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. MONICA GAGLIANO: And it's good it was Sunday. And the plant still went to the place where the pipe was not even in the dirt? MONICA GAGLIANO: So, you know, I'm in the dark. ROBERT: 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. Me first. Because what she does next is three days later, she takes these plants back into the lab. Bye everybody. So it's predicting something to arrive. JENNIFER FRAZER: Into which she put these sensitive plants. Is that what -- is that what this? Every one of them. Little seatbelt for him for the ride down. And they still remembered. MONICA GAGLIANO: Landing very comfortably onto a padded base made of foam. And then JENNIFER FRAZER: They secrete acid. 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. So that's where these -- the scientists from Princeton come in: Peter, Sharon and Aatish. They may have this intelligence, maybe we're just not smart enough yet to figure it out. let's do it! So they might remember even for a much longer time than 28 days. And I'm wondering whether Monica is gonna run into, as she tries to make plants more animal-like, whether she's just going to run into this malice from the scientific -- I'm just wondering, do you share any of that? Pics! ROBERT: After three days of this training regime, it is now time to test the plants with just the fan, no light. And not too far away from this tree, underground, there is a water pipe. And while it took us a while to see it, apparently these little threads in the soil. There's not a leak in the glass. It was like -- it was like a huge network. 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. They learned something. This -- this actually happened to me. I can scream my head off if I want to. 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. ], Test the outer edges of what you think you know. Where we've all been, you know, doing our daily business. Seasonally. ROBERT: After three days of this training regime, it is now time to test the plants with just the fan, no light. 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