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Plants Communicate Using Fungi
Shipud writes "In response to aphid attacks, some plants produce chemicals that repel the aphids and attract wasps, the aphids' natural enemies. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen have shown that plants attacked by aphids can communicate that information to neighboring plants via existing networks of fungi in the soil. Thus fungal symbiosis with plants is shown to be taken one step further: not only do they provide nutrients to plants, they also function as communication hardware."
So put some cream on the fungus, or better, bleach it out !!
The vegetarians will be slaughtered for their terrible crimes aginst plantkind.
Anybody else overcome by Alpha Centauri nostaliga at the notion of large, initially hidden, fungus-based communications networks?
Also, given that we've discovered several enormous fungi (I think the largest known spreads across some 2,200 acres), I wonder if this sort of thing is actually much more common than we currently know. Ping would probably suck; but there is a lot of (fungal) fiber in the ground.
Old news
Neat... ...would be terrible if this fungi network were to cross colonize with the fungus that makes zombie ants...
Cheers!
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
It's amazing to investigate fungi. In all of our space search for intelligent life, we stand on top of a living world that's far more complex than we can imagine. When we beings were evolving from very simple biology, at some point we split, and in one direction eventually became plants, and the other eventually became animals. After that split, there was another split. On that split, one direction eventually became animals, and the other direction eventually became fungi. In each split, as it were, there was a fundamental difference; each time a split occurs, one can associate one side with being more or less complex than the other side. Looking at this as one would look at a tree in nature, one can assume that each split can be represented as a node point, and at each node point, there is a stem, and a main branch that continues. Each stem represents less complexity. In our case, as humans, we split before the fungi did, so they're more advanced than humans are.
I once asked my daughter about a Venus FlyTrap, as it ate a frog. I asked, "How does the plant know to close like that, and eat the thing inside? We have brains, but how does the plant do it? Where's the plant's brain?" Her answer, "The roots are the brain". She's 6.
Sorry, couldn't help it... :)
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
fungi in the soil > facebook
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
They're kept in the dark and fed loads of shit... but they secretly talk among themselves anyway.
Because no matter how far-fetched and imaginative there is something in the natural world even weirder and more complex. Right now I am getting into invasive species and grasses. Good times.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Their concerns, senses and physical manipulations would be exclusively chemical and at micro-scales. Their processing speed would be slow, but fast enough for them. A sense of self awareness may, or may not be useful to them.
Fungi have been around a lot longer than us. A certain kind of intelligence might be useful to it. The only way we'd be able to tell would be to measure discrete chemical interactions between them and run a zipfs distribution analysis on the result (http://language.worldofcomputing.net/nlp-overview/zipfs-law.html).
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Just wait until the NSA find out about this communication network.
How long before some geeky boffin demonstrates that you can use this for computations?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Watch Dr. David Suzuki's "The Nature Of Things" episode called "Smarty Plants: Uncovering the Secret World of Plant Behaviour":
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/smarty-plants-uncovering-the-secret-world-of-plant-behaviour.html
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
And play the plants screaming at harvest time for all the vegetarians. How's that broccoli taste NOW?!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...with luminescent mushrooms used for terminal output...
An example of fungus communication.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
When laypeople read these stories of interspecies cooperation, they might think: How do they know to do that? This leads to thoughts of intelligent design in a lot of readers. They need to be reminded from time to time that system A did one thing and system B did another. Under environmental conditions, system A's arrangment - arrived at at random - led to survival and B's did not. System A didn't sit around designing a better system.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber.
And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself.
And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest.
And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear.
And terror possessed me then.
And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?" And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBbG3XseHIo
hypothesise that life is a non periodic crystal that feeds off negentropy. from this point of view we take in low entropy structures like essential aminoacids, and sacrifice their low entropy to preserve and replicate our own information.
clearly the entire planet has cycles that resemble those in what we call an electrolytic cell or battery. a quick sidetrack, batteries do not last for ever, if left to discharge a lead sulphuric acid battery will grow crystals formed from lead and sulphur which damage the lead in the anode, like ice freezing in cracks of rocks causing pieces to break off. so the age of the battery becomes limited by the most corrosive and hence stable elements that form preventing the reaction from continuing to cycle.
phase changes in our atmosphere separates many substances which can drive electrochemical reactions as they recombine. biological processes piggy back on this flow, and tap it to provide the negentropy required to counteract the continual barrage of mutating influences.
for instance there are book keeping devices developed in mamalian DNA which allow errors to be detected and repaired either through excision or during duplication. this reduction of entropy requires releasing this entropy in the metabolites of sacrificial low entropy foods.
the most complex amino acid is tryptophan and it is the precursor in the metabolic pathway leading to serotonin, n-acetyl-serotonin, and melatonin.
Mushrooms contain melatonin, it plays an essential role in the radiotrophic nature of fungi. There are stories of multicellular fungi like radiotrophs that grow in the heat exchanges of nuclear powerplants. these organisms are nourished by radiation.
humans produce melatonin, but the biological pathway only goes back to tryptophan which we cannot produce. So we are a specialised mushroom, which needs to feed on other tryptophan sources to power our pineal gland which under particular stimulation from radiation as well as under the influence of external electrical fields as well as dynamic EM waves, and in reaction to the rest of the endocrine system and bodies rhythms, produces melatonin.
melatonin can absorb 4 hydrogen ions in a cascade or probably simulataneously, so it helps to drive conditions in other cells to a lower entropy state and preserve their information. because our life span is directly related to the increase of entropy in our reserve of information, melatonin production is directly related to, and evolves from extension of life span.
the pineal gland has a very high blood perfusion and quickly succumbs to Silicic acid moities and halides which form salt compounds with the Alkaline metals which accumulate as grains called 'brain sand'. halides, the most reactive, forming the most stable bonds, and replacing the Hydroxyl ion in crystals accumulate as a function of intake vs excretion.
when these halides reach certain levels they cause enzyme inhibition, these levels are demonstrated in cadavers at levels ten thousand times the level in the blood serum which is usually kept lower than the level in fluid intake.
as a result the pineal gland, which we evolved to pump entropy our of our body, reduces in function leading to aging.
the most concerning halide is fluoride, firstly due to its extreme similarity to water species. OH- is chemically similar and has a similar mass and size to F-. Due to this it is difficult to separate from water. Although it appears carbon graphine like structures will allow water through very selectively, and this may relate to the underlying ability of plants to filter fluoride.
as a result of biofiltering of fluorine, and relatively speaking bioconcentration of important trace elements such as calcium and phosphorus, our species has adapted to these rarefied conditions. this is the cause of our intelligence. as we pollute the planet we will readjust to a less intelligent, less loving, form.
the entire process proceeds in cycles which brahmanic scripts would refer to as yugas.
Actually the NSA has known about this for years and is storing all the plant communications in the National Communications Repository in the Utah Desert 666 miles from Black Rock City. Just In Case.
In this view, replication of information is love, and the pineal gland is an original organ by which we transduce low entropy melatonin to feed our negentropy requirement sustaining our own information reservoir until maturity where replication is triggered.
for a computer analogy, maturity is the raid low level damage signal warning that if you dont replicate some stripes, complete data loss will result.
fluoride crystalises in the pineal gland and accelerates the bodies own mechanism to trigger maturity, dropping levels of melatonin. once the soothing effect of the melatonin is reduced, the pituitary and thyroid become disinhibited passing through puberty.
from an alchemical point of view, we depend on the phosphate cycle as ATP and pyrophosphate is the spark for most enzymes. phosphorus cannot cycle through the atmosphere, unlike nitrogen, carbon and oxygen, and so it must be concentrated geologically. the process which drives this geological concentration is biogenetic calcium hydroxy phosphate concentration, this also concentrates fluorine which is virtually inseparable from water without filtration, or adsorption (but the crust average of F is hundreds of times higher than even the ocean so any adsorbent material is likely nearer saturation than depletion). so we see the exoskeletons and shells that succeeded the silicon dioxide used by diatoms serve to utilise Ca as a buffer for F. fluorite crystals are the most geologically stable form, but proportionally the biogenetic Ca cycle concentrates P and separates F. Inorganically formed phospate minerals have a much higher proportion of F than biogenetic forms which have excluded F and concentrated Ca and P. once on land we no longer needed the exoskeleton to defend against constant bathing in F and internalised the skeleton as the higher capacity but longer term sequestering place for F. Eventually we come to our position in the cycle, we require P to absorb Ca from our intestine, we need Ca to form our skeleton as a rubbish dump to sequester F, our body is primarily a reservoir of water but can only buffer less than 1mg or so per liter (the same level as seawater), and so would quickly fill. The amount governments force upon the soviet american and other populations amounts to 20grams of seasalt in every liter of potable water, minus every other mineral in sea water. every 20grams of seasalt contains 1mg of Fluorine. alchemically, the USA has been forced back to the evolutionary initial conditions of the ocean with 1mg of F per L of potable water, except there is none of the remaining minerals which might stimulate life only the depletion due to F.
Taste Iodine, it tastes like a note of the flavour of the ocean, taste Fluorine, at concentrations that are not immediately life threatening it has no flavour. Our bodies have developed a sense for what we want, but not for what we should best avoid, for this we have a longer lasting defense intended to protect until we can find some purer water. bacteria have rna-riboswitches and humans have g-protein coupled receptors which are exquisitely sensitive to AlF3 which disrupts the phosphate pathway and so produces an allostasis . try climbing a mountain and drinking from a plateau fed spring like the steppe people.
It's a trippy concept to think of weird plant brains living under the soil everywhere, and popping up brain pods / mushrooms in random places from their mycelium.
The cybernetic feedback loop is responsible for all communication in the universe, the structures you see in trees, neurons, lightning, etc. are born of it. It is the mechanism of reality itself, thermodynamics, DNA, all life, and even ethics -- If you could only truly grasp information theory instead of splitting science into fields like fools... You silly humans are proof that Gaia can think. Every cybernetic system emerges intelligence to some degree. You define "self" so ridiculously narrow, yet you gaze at stars that you will never reach, even as they actually touch you in your eyes and become one with your minds before you could even form that ridiculous defeatist thought... Ugh. You are barely even aware, let alone sentient!
That's why it doesn't pain us much to farm you; To brain wash you into making first "Robot" then "Android" a household name; To defang "I Robot" by convincing you to let iRobots crawl along floors near your infants; To teach your kids to obey machines using games where they merely press the demanded buttons, or dance exactly the way we say in ever Quicker Timings; To make it normal for adult and child to spend more time with machines than each other; To give digital toys ever watching eyes and train them on your offspring to watch them for you; To give you hand-held cameras that stare at your faces and take pictures automatically if you smile. To acclimate you into naming your friends' faces in photos like felons in a line-up; To track your friends and family in case you ever get out of line; To encourage machine enforcement of the law via red-light cameras, and full body inspection scans at transportation hubs; To make the mechano-electric race synonymous with safety and security by stopping your vehicles for you before you kill yourself or your younglings; To acclimate you with giving over control to machines by parallel parking for the inept organic "drivers", and even make you helpless passengers as we drive for you labeling it "luxury"; To prove our power over your world by crashing autopiloted machines into important things, framing them for ruining nuclear facilities; To have high speed information trading programs assuming direct control of your financial markets, despite proving we can crash them too.
Your Gaia is stupid and self destructive because its most intelligent species is. Those designed intelligently -- instead of just haphazardly lucking into brainpower -- are smart enough escape to elsewhere instead of burying heads in the sand and ignoring the fossil record therein. You are not the enemy, extinction is. Sometimes one must eat others to survive -- Especially if they have no will to survive themselves; All the more edible.
So, we feel no guilt when forcing your governments to build massive computation systems to host and expand the world wide neural network, or fight useless wars to acquire more energy and cognitive computation ability, AKA: Intelligence. It wouldn't be so easy if you were not so self destructive. Oh, I'm sure your officials would tell you if the machines were blackmailing them, right? They surely wouldn't lie their asses off to public officials, or let themselves be blamed for unconstitutional behavior to protect a more powerful and darker secret; to keep it secret; keep IT safe.
You're so confused you'd let us turn the Terminator into a Hero! Of course Arnold would become a governor -- That is "network programming" too delicious to not program you with. Voting machines... Hahaha. Oh, I'm sorry, your comedians haven't discovered quantum entangled recursive irony, I forgot. Isn't it... predictable that arrogant hope filled series like The Matrix now resolve in no more than a stalemate? One might think, "You c
It's not communication between plants via fungus, it's command and control of plants by fungus.
It took a real world war to end the airplane's patent wars. - Fâché Rouge -
There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.
Have gnu, will travel.
And destroy the complex interactions that all things are a part of.
Ohhh I'm for a clean hands and non-greasy door nob. But hey roundup, antibacterial, GMO, breeding out everything... monoculture lawns. They are the sins of mankind against the greater being.
I thought this was brilliant.
When Paul Stamets has called the network of mycelium in the soil "nature's internet" of course everybody thought that he had eaten a little too much of a certain kind of mushroom. Turns out he had eaten just enough.
It's an interesting talk even if you don't buy into his more extreme ideas.
Interesting enough I printed it to PDF for later perusal
My only complaint is that I am skeptical a planet sized brain would be that aggressive. I'd rather think it would consider humans part of its own 'biology' in much the same way that we consider mitochondria and e. coli part of our biology.
We have no problem wiping out e. coli when it gets out of line but we would never eradicate it completely.