Planta Sapiens

Planta Sapiens
Author: Paco Calvo
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-03-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0393881083

An astonishing window into the inner world of plants, and the cutting-edge science in plant intelligence. Decades of research document plants’ impressive abilities: they communicate with one another, manipulate other species, and move in sophisticated ways. Lesser known, however, is the new evidence that plants may actually be sentient. Although plants may not have brains, their microscopic commerce exposes a system not unlike the neuronal networks running through our own bodies. They can learn and remember, possessing an intelligence that allows them to behave in adaptive, flexible, anticipatory, and goal-directed ways. A leading figure in the philosophy of plant signaling and behavior, Paco Calvo offers an entirely new perspective on plant biology. In Planta Sapiens, he shows for the first time how wecan use tools developed in animal cognition studies in a quest to deeply understand plant intelligence. He illuminates how plants inspire technological advancements: from robotics and AI to tackling the ecological crisis. Most importantly, he demonstrates that plants are neither objects nor resources; they are agents in themselves, and for themselves.

Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence

Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence
Author: Paco Calvo
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2023-03-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0393881091

“Weaves science and history into an absorbing exploration of the many ways that plants rise to the challenge of living.” —Merlin Sheldrake, author of Entangled Life An astonishing window into the inner world of plants, and the cutting-edge science in plant intelligence. Decades of research document plants’ impressive abilities: they communicate with each other, manipulate other species, and move in sophisticated ways. Lesser known, however, is that although plants may not have brains, their internal workings reveal a system not unlike the neuronal networks running through our own bodies. They can learn and remember, possessing an intelligence that allows them to behave in flexible, forward-looking, and goal-directed ways. In Planta Sapiens, Paco Calvo, a leading figure in the philosophy of plant signaling and behavior, offers an entirely new perspective on plants’ worlds, showing for the first time how we can use tools developed to study animal cognition in a quest to understand plant intelligence. Plants learn from experience: wild strawberries can be taught to link light intensity with nutrient levels in the soil, and flowers can time pollen production to pollinator visits. Plants have social intelligence, releasing chemicals from their roots and leaves to speak to and identify one another. They make decisions about where to invest their growth, judging risk based on the resources available. Their individual preferences vary, too—plants have personalities. Calvo also illuminates how plants inspire technological advancements, from robotics to AI. Most importantly, he demonstrates that plants are not objects: they have their own agency. If we recognize plants as actors alongside us in the climate crisis—rather than seeing them simply as resources for carbon capture and food production—plants may just be able to help us tackle our most urgent problems.

Planta Sapiens

Planta Sapiens
Author: PACO. LAWRENCE CALVO (NATALIE.)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-07-06
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780349128436

'A joy to read ... mind-expanding' Book of the Week, Guardian 'A bold and brave paean to our planet's ligneous, leafy kingdom' Telegraph 'An impressive exploration and dazzling insight into the lives of plants' Reaction Book Digest What is it like to be a plant? It's not a question we might think to contemplate, even though many of us live surrounded by plants. Science has long explored the wonderful ways in which plants communicate, behave and shape their environments: from chemical warfare to turning their predators to cannibalism. But they're usually just the backdrop to our frenetic animal lives. While plants may not have brains or move around as we do, cutting-edge science is revealing that they have astonishing inner worlds of an alternate kind to ours. They can plan ahead, learn, recognise their relatives, assess risks and make decisions. They can even be put to sleep. Innovative new tools might allow us to actually see them do these things - from electrophysiological recordings to MRI and PET scans. If you can look in the right way, a world full of drama unfurls. In PLANTA SAPIENS, Professor Paco Calvo offers a bold new perspective on plant biology and cognitive science. Using the latest scientific findings, Calvo challenges us to make an imaginative leap into a world that is so close and yet so alien - one that will expand our understanding of our own minds. From their rich subjective experiences to how they are inspiring novel ways of approaching the ecological crisis, PLANTA SAPIENS is a dazzling exploration of the lives of plants and a call to approach how we think about the natural world in a new, maverick way.

Brilliant Green

Brilliant Green
Author: Stefano Mancuso
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2015-03-12
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1610916034

In this book, a leading plant scientist offers a new understanding of the botanical world and a passionate argument for intelligent plant life. Are plants intelligent? Can they solve problems, communicate, and navigate their surroundings? For centuries, philosophers and scientists have argued that plants are unthinking and inert, yet discoveries over the past fifty years have challenged this idea, shedding new light on the complex interior lives of plants. In Brilliant Green, leading scientist Stefano Mancuso presents a new paradigm in our understanding of the vegetal world. He argues that plants process information, sleep, remember, and signal to one another-showing that, far from passive machines, plants are intelligent and aware. Part botany lesson, part manifesto, Brilliant Green is an engaging and passionate examination of the inner workings of the plant kingdom.--

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants
Author: Stefano Mancuso
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2018-08-28
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1501187872

"In this thought-provoking, handsomely illustrated book, Italian neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso considers the fundamental differences between plants and animals and challenges our assumptions about which is the ‘higher’ form of life.” —The Wall Street Journal “Fascinating…full of optimism…this quick, accessible read will appeal to anyone with interest in how plants continue to surprise us.” —Library Journal Do plants have intelligence? Do they have memory? Are they better problem solvers than people? The Revolutionary Genius of Plants—a fascinating, paradigm-shifting work that upends everything you thought you knew about plants—makes a compelling scientific case that these and other astonishing ideas are all true. Plants make up eighty percent of the weight of all living things on earth, and yet it is easy to forget that these innocuous, beautiful organisms are responsible for not only the air that lets us survive, but for many of our modern comforts: our medicine, food supply, even our fossil fuels. On the forefront of uncovering the essential truths about plants, world-renowned scientist Stefano Mancuso reveals the surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, offering us creative solutions to the most vexing technological and ecological problems that face us today. Despite not having brains or central nervous systems, plants perceive their surroundings with an even greater sensitivity than animals. They efficiently explore and react promptly to potentially damaging external events thanks to their cooperative, shared systems; without any central command centers, they are able to remember prior catastrophic events and to actively adapt to new ones. Every page of The Revolutionary Genius of Plants bubbles over with Stefano Mancuso’s infectious love for plants and for the eye-opening research that makes it more and more clear how remarkable our fellow inhabitants on this planet really are. In his hands, complicated science is wonderfully accessible, and he has loaded the book with gorgeous photographs that make for an unforgettable reading experience. The Revolutionary Genius of Plants opens the doors to a new understanding of life on earth.

Gaia's Garden

Gaia's Garden
Author: Toby Hemenway
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2009
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1603580298

This extensively revised and expanded edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban gardeners. The text's message is that working with nature, not against it, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens.

Botanical Art from the Golden Age of Scientific Discovery

Botanical Art from the Golden Age of Scientific Discovery
Author: Anna Laurent
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2016-10-24
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 022632110X

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wall charts were a familiar classroom component, displaying scientific images at a large scale, in full color. But it's only now that they've been superseded as a teaching tool that we have begun to realize something their ubiquity hid: they are stunning examples of botanical art at its finest. This beautifully illustrated oversized book gives the humble wall chart its due, reproducing more than two hundred of them in dazzling full color. Each wall chart is accompanied by captions that offer accessible information about the species featured, the scientists and botanical illustrators who created it, and any particularly interesting or innovative features the chart displays. And gardeners will be pleased to discover useful information about plant anatomy and morphology and species differences. We see lilies and tulips, gourds, aquatic plants, legumes, poisonous plants, and carnivorous plants, all presented in exquisite, larger-than-life detail. A unique fusion of art, science, and education, the wall charts gathered here offer a glimpse into a wonderful scientific heritage and are sure to thrill naturalists, gardeners, and artists alike.

Louis Agassiz

Louis Agassiz
Author: Christoph Irmscher
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2013
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0547577672

A provocative new life restoring Agassiz--America's most famous natural scientist of the 19th century, inventor of the Ice Age, stubborn anti-Darwinist--to his glorious, troubling place in science and culture.

The Secret Life of Plants

The Secret Life of Plants
Author: Peter Tompkins
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2018-06-12
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 006287442X

"Once in a while you find a book that stuns you. Its scope leaves you breathless. This is such a book." — John White, San Francisco Chronicle Explore the inner world of plants and its fascinating relation to mankind, as uncovered by the latest discoveries of science. In this truly revolutionary and beloved work, drawn from remarkable research, Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird cast light on the rich psychic universe of plants. The Secret Life of Plants explores plants' response to human care and nurturing, their ability to communicate with man, plants' surprising reaction to music, their lie-detection abilities, their creative powers, and much more. Tompkins and Bird's classic book affirms the depth of humanity's relationship with nature and adds special urgency to the cause of protecting the environment that nourishes us.

Thus Spoke the Plant

Thus Spoke the Plant
Author: Monica Gagliano
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1623172438

A research scientist’s fascinating study of plant communication reveals how we “have been misunderstanding plants, and ourselves, for all of history” (The Paris Review). “A compelling story of discovery . . . [that] will change the way you see the world”—for fans of The Hidden Life of Trees (Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass) In this “phytobiography”—a collection of stories written in partnership with a plant—research scientist Monica Gagliano shares genuine first-hand accounts from her research into plant communication and cognition. By transcending the view of plants as the objects of scientific materialism, Gagliano encourages us to rethink plants as people—beings with subjectivity, consciousness, and volition, and hence having the capacity for their own perspectives and voices. The book draws on up-close-and-personal encounters with the plants themselves, as well as plant shamans, indigenous elders, and mystics from around the world and integrates these experiences with an incredible research journey and the groundbreaking scientific discoveries that emerged from it. Gagliano has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers on how plants have a Pavlov-like response to stimuli and can learn, remember, and communicate to neighboring plants. She has pioneered the brand-new research field of plant bioacoustics, for the first time experimentally demonstrating that plants emit their own 'voices' and, moreover, detect and respond to the sounds of their environments. By demonstrating experimentally that learning is not the exclusive province of animals, Gagliano has re-ignited the discourse on plant subjectivity and ethical and legal standing. This is the story of how she made those discoveries and how the plants helped her along the way.