Tag: smarty-plants
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Makes great sense.
This new study makes deep sense. Why is it better to take a certain medicine at the same time each day? Because the cells that respond to the medicine LEARN and STORE MEMORIES in the same way that brain cells learn and store memories. The whole body is a brain, and the whole body learns…
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More on Fessenden’s electrifier
I mentioned that Fessenden’s crop electrifier was basically a repeat of earlier experiments around 1900. Found some of those experiments, reported in California Climate Review for 1891. The details verify that Fessenden was following the same method. The results were remarkable and consistent when this setup was used. Other researchers tried passing a current through…
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Not so random
Writing about Fessenden’s static irrigator caused an old popup memory. A chemical called Gibberellin was a big deal in the 50s and 60s, advertised as a universal helper for plants. Science mags wrote about it, and house and garden catalogs featured it. I wasn’t interested in gardening so didn’t really explore the subject. I haven’t…
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Fessenden the farmer
Well, not really. Fessenden had a wide-ranging vision and tried his hand in many different areas. Around 1914 he got into agriculture. In one patent he wrote a treatise on improving agriculture, showing the tech optimism of the time. Mass production will solve all problems. He developed a sort of super-greenhouse system where everything could…
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Modularity is the key
The latest appeal from Brownstone: = = = = = START BROWNSTONE: It became clear in 2020 and following that a major purge was on. It hit academia, media, government, and industry. The vaccine mandates helped cull the dissenters from many institutions. Censorship also worked wonders. The demonization of the resistance was ferocious. It remains…
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Wot? No beats?
An experiment shows fungi don’t like silence. But the choice of sounds is peculiar. = = = = = START QUOTE: To investigate the impacts of sounds on fungi, Jake Robinson at Flinders University in Australia and his colleagues buried green and rooibos teabags in soil inside a soundproof box. Inside the box, they played…
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Definite and speculative
Noted on this morning’s walk… A walnut tree dropped a dozen nuts in a dozen seconds from one branch, then stopped. Caught my attention because most of them were falling on a roof, making a loud noise. The same branch on the same tree dropped nuts on the same roof during my walk a few…
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They know what they’re doing
Interesting picture at one of the Enid history FB pages. It’s an aerial shot of the abandoned Trail Drivein theater. Appears to be a trucking company next door, and they’ve used the back end of the quarter-circle to store trailers. (Now it’s the Trailer Drivein! Yuk yuk yuk.) Trees are taking over the main part…
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Speaking of extra senses….
Denyse at MindMatters cites a fascinating new study on plant intelligence. TL-DR: Climbing bean plants can sense where a vertical pole is without having to feel around. No trial and error, no obvious negative feedback. The tendrils just drive straight toward the nearest vertical thing. The researchers are trying to use this as evidence of…
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Time scales
Kirn pointed to this fascination with plant intelligence. “Another example of how living things are all animated, just at different time scales.” The video shows how tendrils seek a support. Plant intelligence is an odd branch of science. It’s been known forever by farmers and beekeepers and others who work with plants, and it’s been…
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More Xirn Xibbles
Kirn is making a strong point here, but I can still find a way to quibble! Note to my bumptious unorthodox younger friends: Lots of tricky “honey pots” on this site right now meant to draw you by degrees into anti-whomever grunting neo-primitivism so you can go on a big list to be used against…
Polistra's Mill 