Thursday, January 23, 2014

On the frontiers of biology: plant communications

It's often assumed that plants boring, sedentary, and solitary organisms, but new research (or old research reexamined) changes that.  Plants communicate, the mount defenses against predators;  they seemingly act in concert with one another, though other hypotheses call into question the intentionality of such communication.

Quanta magazine has a recent article titled "The Secret Language of Plants" detailing some new research.

PBS's Nature has a full episode online- What Plants Talk About.

Both provide a fascinating look into a normally overlooked part of our world.