It just kept curling and curling. 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. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah, mimosa has been one of the pet plants, I guess, for many scientists for, like, centuries. ROBERT: I think that's fair. So after the first few, the plants already realized that that was not necessary. ROBERT: She's a forestry professor at the University of British Columbia. No. So you just did what Pavlov did to a plant. He uses it to train his border www.npr.org Before you begin to think that this is weird science, stop. MONICA GAGLIANO: Yeah, I know. 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! ROBERT: Wait a second. Plants are amazing, and this world is amazing and that living creatures have this ability for reasons we don't understand, can't comprehend yet." ROY HALLING: Like, I say, it's early in the season. 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 they didn't. JAD: Is it just pulling it from the soil? And look, and beyond that there are forests, there are trees that the scientists have found where up to 75 percent of the nitrogen in the tree turns out to be fish food. And lignin is full of nitrogen, but also compounds like nitrogen is important in DNA, right? And I've been in the construction industry ever since I'm about 16 years old. 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. Remember I told you how trees make sugar? ROBERT: Packets of minerals. Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. It's like a bank? MONICA GAGLIANO: I don't know. They're called feeder roots. LARRY UBELL: No, I don't because she may come up against it, people who think that intelligence is unique to humans. JENNIFER FRAZER: That something bad is happening. And it can reach these little packets of minerals and mine them. And therefore she might, in the end, see something that no one else would see. 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. SUZANNE SIMARD: Like, nitrogen and phosphorus. ROBERT: So that's what the tree gives the fungus. I don't know if you're a bank or if you're an -- so it's not necessarily saying, "Give it to the new guy." They have to -- have to edit in this together. ROBERT: Truth is, I think on this point she's got a -- she's right. Because I have an appointment. But then, scientists did an experiment where they gave some springtails some fungus to eat. JAD: Couldn't it just be an entirely different interpretation here? MONICA GAGLIANO: I created these horrible contraptions. The glass is not broken. Here's the water.". One time, the plant literally flew out of the pot and upended with roots exposed. JENNIFER FRAZER: And this is what makes it even more gruesome. Today, Robert drags Jad along ona parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. Monica's work has actually gotten quite a bit of attention from other plant biologists. So for three days, three times a day, she would shine these little blue lights on the plants. Why waste hot water? ROBERT: She found that the one stimulus that would be perfect was MONICA GAGLIANO: A little fan. MONICA GAGLIANO: I wonder if that was maybe a bit too much. Huh. These guys are actually doing it." You got somewhere to go? But instead of dogs, she had pea plants in a dark room. Again, science writer Jennifer Frazer. JAD: Wait a second. I spoke to her with our producer Latif Nasser, and she told us that this -- this network has developed a kind of -- a nice, punny sort of name. ROBERT: And the classic case of this is if you go back a few centuries ago, someone noticed that plants have sex. And it's more expensive. To try to calculate how much springtail nitrogen is traveling back to the tree. Radiolab: Smarty Plants. LARRY UBELL: It's kind of like a cold glass sitting on your desk, and there's always a puddle at the bottom. ROBERT: That's a -- learning is something I didn't think plants could do. ROBERT: I wanted to talk to them because, as building inspectors they -- there's something they see over and over and over. SUZANNE SIMARD: Douglas fir, birch and cedar. Pics! That's what she says. They run out of energy. JAD: So we're up to experiment two now, are we not? Into which she put these sensitive plants. Two very different options for our plant. ROBERT: Now that's a very, you know, animals do this experiment, but it got Monica thinking. They run out of energy. ROBERT: 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. I know -- I know you -- I know you don't. 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. We went to the Bronx, and when we went up there, we -- there was this tall man waiting for us. Like, from the trees perspective, how much of their sugar are they giving to the fungus? I don't know. So she's got her plants in the pot, and we're going to now wait to see what happens. The same one that are used in computers like, you know, really tiny. They can't photosynthesize. ROBERT: And he starts digging with his rake at the base of this tree. MONICA GAGLIANO: A plant that is quite far away from the actual pipe. Could a plant learn to associate something totally random like a bell with something it wanted, like food? So, okay. And it's good it was Sunday. MONICA GAGLIANO: Again, if you imagine that the pot, my experimental pot. ROBERT: And we saw this in the Bronx. This is like metaphor is letting in the light as opposed to shutting down the blinds. The problem is is with plants. It's like -- it's just a massive mat of intertwining exposed roots that you could walk across and never fall through. And the pea plant leans toward them. Join free & follow Radiolab. But it didn't happen. ], And Alvin Ubell. JAD: So today we have a triptych of experiments about plants. MONICA GAGLIANO: It's a very biased view that humans have in particular towards others. Little fan goes on, little light goes on, both aiming at the pea plant from the same direction. View SmartyPlantsRadioLab Transcript (2).docx from CHEM 001A at Pasadena City College. Both aiming at the pea plant from the same direction, and the pea plant leans toward them. Well, I have one thing just out of curiosity ROBERT: As we were winding up with our home inspectors, Alvin and Larry Ubell, we thought maybe we should run this metaphor idea by them. MONICA GAGLIANO: Or would just be going random? Well, when I was a kid, my family spent every summer in the forest. Or maybe it's the fungus under the ground is kind of like a broker and decides who gets what. Jad and Robert, they are split on this one. Dedicated to enhancing the lives of the citizens in the communities it serves by responding to their need to be engaged, educated, entertained & enlightened. 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. ROBERT: Okay. Like a human would. We dropped. All in all, turns out one tree was connected to 47 other trees all around it. This -- this actually happened to me. MONICA GAGLIANO: Like for example, my plants were all in environment-controlled rooms, which is not a minor detail. And so of course, that was only the beginning. ALVIN UBELL: And the tree happens to be a weeping willow. Yeah. Wait a second. I'm a research associate professor at the University of Sydney. LATIF: It's like Snow White and The Seven Tubes or something. And I do that in my brain. ROBERT: So you are related and you're both in the plumbing business? Of the tree's sugar goes down to the mushroom team? LATIF: Yeah. I mean, it's a kind of romanticism, I think. JENNIFER FRAZER: So what do we have in our ears that we use to hear sound? With when they actually saw and smelled and ate meat. ROBERT: Okay. Is it, like -- is it a plant? [laughs]. It's soaks in sunshine, and it takes CO2, carbon dioxide, and it's splits it in half. Or even learn? So I don't have a problem. They don't do well in warm temperatures and their needles turn all sickly yellow. I was like, "Oh, my God! Very similar to the sorts of vitamins and minerals that humans need. Yeah. AATISH BHATIA: So this is our plant dropper. ROBERT: She determined that you can pick a little computer fan and blow it on a pea plant for pretty much ever and the pea plant would be utterly indifferent to the whole thing. JAD: And to Annie McEwen and Brenna Farrow who both produced this piece. I gotta say, doing this story, this is the part that knocked me silly. So that's where these -- the scientists from Princeton come in: Peter, Sharon and Aatish. We were waiting for the leaves to, you know, stop folding. It's kind of like a cold glass sitting on your desk, and there's always a puddle at the bottom. ROBERT: The Ubells see this happening all the time. Now, can you -- can you imagine what we did wrong? Yes, because she knew that scientists had proposed years before, that maybe there's an underground economy that exists among trees that we can't see. ROBERT: That there was a kind of a moral objection to thinking it this way. Same as the Pavlov. ROBERT: This is very like if you had a little helmet with a light on it. 526; 4 years ago; Smarty Plants by Radiolab. [ENRIQUE: This is Enrique Romero from the bordertown of Laredo, Texas. I mean, I think there's something to that. Yours is back of your house, but let's make it in the front. Take it. The bell, the meat and the salivation. 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. 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? I do find it magical. 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. ROBERT: He gives us a magnifying glass. say they're very curious, but want to see these experiments repeated. My reaction was, "Oh ****!" ROBERT: And I met a plant biologist who's gonna lead that parade. Liquid rocks. You found exactly what the plants would do under your circumstances which were, I don't know, let's say a bit more tumultuous than mine. And it's more expensive. Take it. Can you -- will you soften your roots so that I can invade your root system?" No, it's because it's like every time I close my eyes, you're coming at it from a different direction. And of course we had to get Jigs out. And then she waited a few more days and came back. And it's that little, little bit of moisture that the plant will somehow sense. [laughs]. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org]. And we were all like, "Oh, my goodness! Five, four, three, two, one, drop! Now that's a very, you know, animals do this experiment, but it got Monica thinking. Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. What the team found is the food ends up very often with trees that are new in the forest and better at surviving global warming. ROBERT: The plants would always grow towards the light. And there was a lot of skepticism at the time. Like, if you put food into one tree over here, it would end up in another tree maybe 30 feet away over there, and then a third tree over here, and then a fourth tree over there, and a fifth tree over there. Each one an ounce, an ounce, an ounce, an ounce, an ounce. Back and forth. And I met a plant biologist who's gonna lead that parade. 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. Ring, meat, eat. [ROY HALLING: This is Roy Halling, researcher specializing in fungi at the New York Botanical Garden. ROBERT: So after much trial and error with click and hums and buzzes MONICA GAGLIANO: All sorts of randomness. ROBERT: They're sort of flea-sized and they spend lots of time munching leaves on the forest floor. AATISH BHATIA: This feels one of those experiments where you just abort it on humanitarian grounds, you know? 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.". I mean, you've heard that. I mean, you're out there in the forest and you see all these trees, and you think they're individuals just like animals, right? So Monica moves the fans to a new place one more time. No. Or at the time actually, she was a very little girl who loved the outdoors. And so I was really excited. Or even learn? I guess you could call it a mimosa plant drop box. Image credits: Photo Credit: Flickred! 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. The next one goes, "Uh-oh." Because the only reason why the experiment turned out to be 28 days is because I ran out of time. They'd remember straight away. They have to -- have to edit in this together. SUZANNE SIMARD: Yes, we don't normally ascribe intelligence to plants, and plants are not thought to have brains. But they do have root hairs. And we can move it up, and we can drop it. Radiolab will continue in a moment. It's a -- it's a three-pronged answer. But then ROY HALLING: Finally! ROBERT: And this? Yes. In 1997, a couple of scientists wrote a paper which describes how fungi JENNIFER FRAZER: Have developed a system for mining. 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. I mean, I think there's something to that. She says one of the weirdest parts of this though, is when sick trees give up their food, the food doesn't usually go to their kids or even to trees of the same species. The fungi needs sugar to build their bodies, the same way that we use our food to build our bodies. So its resources, its legacy will move into the mycorrhizal network into neighboring trees. ], Test the outer edges of what you think you know. ROBERT: And some of them, this is Lincoln Taiz LINCOLN TAIZ: I'm a professor emeritus of plant biology at UC Santa Cruz. JAD: You're doing the -- like, okay first it was the roots under the ground all connected into a whole hive thing. That is actually a clue in what turns out to be a deep, deep mystery. Pics! One tree goes "Uh-oh." This is the fungus. JAD: That apparently -- jury's still out -- are going to make me rethink my stance on plants. 2016. Huh. JAD: Wait. ROBERT: 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. JENNIFER FRAZER: And then they did experiments with the same fungus that I'm telling you about that was capturing the springtails, and they hooked it up to a tree. And you don't see it anywhere. 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. 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 she says she began to notice things that, you know, one wouldn't really expect. Into which she put these sensitive plants. [laughs]. I mean again, it's a tree. She says we now know that trees give each other loans. No, Summer is a real person and her last name happens to be spelled R-A-Y-N-E. They're switched on. But maybe it makes her sort of more open-minded than -- than someone who's just looking at a notebook. The plants would always grow towards the light. ROBERT: And the idea was, she wanted to know like, once the radioactive particles were in the tree, what happens next? The light and the fan were always coming from the same direction. And I mean, like, really loved the outdoors. And when you look at the map, what you see are circles sprouting lines and then connecting to other circles also sprouting lines. And to me, here are three more reasons that you can say, "No, really! 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