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http://www.doesgodexist.org/MayJun96/WhenAPlantScreams.htmlThe United States Department of Agriculture has learned that plants "scream" chemically when attacked by caterpillars. Corn plants, for example, release a chemical signal when mixed with the saliva of the caterpillar. This signal attracts wasps which lay their eggs in the caterpillar, eventually killing the caterpillar and saving the plant. If the leaf is cut or injured in some other way, the chemical signal is not emitted. Only when the caterpillar saliva mixes with the damaged portion of the leaf is the signal given off.
Because of this elaborate system, a wasp can seek out caterpillars in a huge corn field and stop large scale damage. James Tumlinson, of the USDA says soybeans and cotton plants have a similar defense against pests. We are only beginning to understand how many natural protective mechanisms are built into the environment to help us and protect us. Some pesticides may kill the wasps and not the caterpillars, defeating the system designed to protect the plants. There is much to learn about the design of living things--a design so complex that we maintain it cannot be a product of chance.
--Source Popular Science, October, 1993, page 33.
RainyOcean said:Well, looks like I'm going to starve
Faggus said:what's the name of the fellow who connected his plants up to a lie detector and got reactions even when thinking agressive thoughts?
The debate began in 1966 when a lie detector expert, Cleve Backster, connected a plant to a polygraph. He said the machine registered changes as soon as he began to contemplate burning the plant's leaves.
Primary perception
Mark Pilkington
Thursday June 10, 2004
The Guardian
Cleve Backster was a respected operator in the controversial field of polygraphy, the use of lie detectors. But in February 1966 he became known for plant telepathy.
Curious to measure how long it took water to reach the leaves of a dracaena cane plant, Backster attached polygraph electrodes to it. These measure galvanic skin response - electrical conductivity - and should, he thought, have registered a change when water reached the leaf. Unexpectedly, the plant showed readings similar to those of a human.
Backster wondered if the plant would effect the polygraph in other ways. He dipped a leaf into warm coffee. Nothing happened. Then he considered burning the leaf; the polygraph, he claims, "went wild. The pen jumped right off the top of the chart". The plant,it seemed, had registered a stress response to Backster 's thoughts of harming it.
He then dropped brine shrimp into boiling water and the plant appeared to register the shrimps' distress. Was the plant demonstrating some kind of sentient, even telepathic, awareness?
Backster thought so and named it "primary perception". His work appeared in the International Journal of Parapsychology (1968), and in Tomkins and Bird's book The Secret Life of Plants (1973). Soviet scientists invited him to chair a panel at the first Psychotronic Association conference in Prague.
Encouraged, Backster experimented further, wiring up yoghurt bacteria, eggs and human sperm. The results seemed to demonstrate that "primary perception" could be measured in all living things, echoing the beliefs of hindus, buddhists and new agers
Backster's findings are not without their critics. Repeatability is a constant problem - his results, and those of others who tried the experiments,seem to be spontaneous, refusing to comply with approved scientific method. Some have criticised his lack of control experiments, suggesting the polygraphs are merely responding to static electricity build-up in the room, changes in humidity or, according to some parapsychologists, Backster's own telekinetic abilities. That the reliability of the polygraph test itself has come into serious question also doesn't help his argument.
Whatever the case, Backster's idea has blossomed and flourished, and is unlikely to die away.
damn me and my inattentive reading! thanks thoughEmperor said:Its actually in the last sentence of the article I posted at...
Plants may feel pain on some level, but it is in no way the same kind of pain or the amount of pain that animals feel.
"Plants don't feel pain. Show me where the proof is. I know this thread was originally about said topic, but the research means nothing towards proving plants feeling pain.
It's been going on for ages now, just like cold fusion.
Soon we'll be hearing that researchers are just about to prove that rocks feel pain....maybe quartz gives out vibrations to electrical charges because it's hurting it and it's throbbing like a crushed thumb! Perhaps molten lava is rock blood!!"
This is what we should actually be discussing.Plants don't feel pain. Show me where the proof is. I know this thread was originally about said topic, but the research means nothing towards proving plants feeling pain... Pain = conciousness. Plants aren't sentient.
Plants don't feel pain. Show me where the proof is. I know this thread was originally about said topic, but the research means nothing towards proving plants feeling pain... Pain = conciousness. Plants aren't sentient.
Tree Physiology, 5:229–237
1989 Heron Publishing—Victoria, Canada
Ultrasound emission after cycles of water stress in Picea abies
M. Borghetti (1), A. Raschi (2) and J. Grace (3)
1. lstituto Miglioramento genetico delle piante forestali, CNR, via S. Bonaventura 13, 50145-Firenze, Italy / 2. Istituto Analisi ambientale e telerilevamento applicati all’agricolura, CNR, P. le delle Cascine 18, 50144-Firenze, Italy / 3. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Edinburgh, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JU, UK / Received July 22, 1988
Summary
The relationships among rate of ultrasound acoustic emission (AE), xylem water potential and transpiration rate were investigated in 5-year-old potted saplings of Picea abies Karst. after cycles of water stress. Water-stressed plants displayed minimum xylem water potentials of –3.9 MPa, near-zero transpiration rates and up to 45 AE counts per minute. After rewatering, water-stressed plants no longer produced AEs. Well-watered control plants produced only a small number of ultrasonic AEs. After three cycles of water stress (lasting 24 days in total), it was estimated that about two-thirds of the functional tracheids were embolized. The concomitant reduction in hydraulic conductance was about 70%.
The very processes of thought,imagination and judgement are things that require purpose and intent not chance.