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| Witchvox Chapter: Wren's Nest News | Chapter Page Views: 56,550,803 |
 Plants 'Can Recognize Themselves' Author: Matt Walker Source: BBC News Title: PLANTS 'CAN RECOGNIZE THEMSELVES' Plants may be able to recognise themselves. Experiments show that a sagebrush plant can recognise a genetically identical cutting growing nearby. What's more, the two clones communicate and cooperate with one another, to avoid being eaten by herbivores. The findings, published in Ecology Letters, raise the tantalising possibility that plants, just like animals, often prefer to help their relatives over unrelated individuals. The ability to distinguish self from non-self is a vital one in nature. | |
| Community Thoughts: There are 5 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Humph | Jun 3rd. at 8:53:26 am EDT |
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Panthea Ge (T-Town, Michigan) - Email Me I see that no empaths are commenting. As an intuitive gardener, I can tell you that plants are aware. I wouldn't call it feeling, but they do react energetically when touched. They know helpful from harmful experience and it changes the way they grow. This is the same as when they react to music or voice. stimulus=>response. I can see why they had a hard time putting it into words. However, I do agree this doesn't imply identity, and I don't foresee existential botany being offered at the local university any time soon! |
| Magpies | Jun 2nd. at 8:24:58 am EDT |
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Seda (Beaver Dam, Wisconsin) - Email Me Yeah.. Magpies recognize themselves, too, actually. They have a level of self-awareness that humans, apes, and a few other animals experience. I agree that it's pretty silly to say that a plant recognizes itself, though, or relatives. Probably more accurate to call it a chemical reaction, sort of like how humans are apparently more attracted to each other based on a subconscious sense of smell. |
| Sloppy Language | Jun 1st. at 4:07:21 pm EDT |
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Rev Chuck Waibel (Milan, Minnesota) - Email Me It's a wonderful discovery, but to use the phrase "recognize themselves" is a downright silly misuse of the language. It implies a level of awareness and "active agency" far beyond anything the study can actually demonstrate, Of course, life forms act and react in their environment. To say "recognize" implies that plants know what they're doing in some detached, abstract fashion. Humans, great apes and some cetaceans recognize themselves. Dogs and cats, much as I love them, don't. With this kind of muddy thinking, is it any wonder that the various brands of Fundamentalism look attractive, with their smug self-certainty? |
| Does This Mean | Jun 1st. at 2:27:11 pm EDT |
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Eran Rathan (Old Town, Maine) - Email Me that we carnivores get to eat the vegetarians too? grin Erin Rathan |
| Take That Vegetarians | Jun 1st. at 11:17:25 am EDT |
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Belladonna Laveau HPs (Conyers, Georgia) - Email Me What will be done now that plants communicate and feel pain? I guess Breatharianism is going to have to evolve! |
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