Biological Power Plants & Electrical Mechanisms ?

Nature.com

We all know and understand that we Humans and Animals respond quickly to being wounded via our  nervous system. There was a research  paper published in 1992 made the then the controversial suggestion that plants too use long-distance electrical signals in response to wounding. Of course we've all heard of people claim to be able to talk to plants and get either a positive or negative response. Such things bring up controversy and debate. But it has since become clear to many researchers that some plants use electrical signalling to control their movements [like a Sunflower following the Sun], although the genes underlying this are unknown. Now comes solid experimental and genetic evidence to support those earlier findings on such a signalling mechanism within plants. Edward Farmer and his colleagues demonstrated that wounding the leaf of a plant we know as the common thale cress or Arabidopsis which is a plant often used as a model organism for studying plant biology. The study resulted in the propagation of electrical activity that stimulates the production of plant hormones that confer resistance against herbivores and pathogens, at undamaged sites some distance from the wound. How exciting. Who knew plants actually used electricity ? Gives new meaning to the conventional human understanding term 'Power Plants'.

The paper may be found here, although most of it is behind a Paywall, but they did provide a video and some graphics illustrating the signaling process does indeed exist by means of electrodes which reveal on the graph that indeed some type of electrical signaling was going on. Who would have thought that caterpillar merely walking across a leaf offered no response, but actually cutting the leaf would send an electrical alarm signal spreading at 9 cm per minute when eaten. Someone has uploaded the video on YouTube, but I'll post a chart and link below of the video from Nature's site. It is helpful to full-screen the video (which may do so in the link automatically) to watch both the actual image of the caterpillar interacting with the leaf and the electrical graphs which show an actual electrical response simultaneously. 

Nature Video: Plant Biology: Electrical Defense Response

image: nature.com

(click to enlarge image)

I do understand that for many, this subject may be a bit boring. But please, don't let it be so. In this electronics day and age, everyone should be fascinated by the intricate sophistication found out in Nature, especially with plants who unlike us have no brain or central nervous system as we know them. Let's hope that such information doesn't get shelved only to be conversed about by a select few intellectuals. Public appreciation is most important if the Earth's natural mechanisms are going to be respected by the public as a whole. While there have been many articles and research done on Plants producing specific chemical compounds to ward off insect attacks, the receipt of the signal messaging system seems to turn on or trigger a specific gene expression for these defense compounds. Such communication has not been understood previously and much remains a mystery, but we now have far more respect for our plants.

Such signaling may also help us to better explain and/or understand how and why plants release VOCs (aerosols) & electrical ions under  certain specific environmental conditions into our Earth's atmosphere which enhances cloud formation and rainfall. The question is, how or what does the trigger releasing for this signal ? Especially is this important with regards 'Climate Change' as many still do not find a connection between healthy old growth vegetation on Earth and it's influence in moderating Earth's climate driving machine which itself is created from physical mechanisms regarding our planet Earth. It is true, Storms develop and move from off the Earth's Oceans and move over the dry land, but what their eventual outcome potential will be over the landscape may well depend on how healthy and functional the healthy vegetation is on the surface. We know that desertification has resulted from vegetation removal in many areas of the Earth. I personally have seen summer monsoonal changes with respect cloud formation with the removal of chaparral plant communities from a specific area. A friend of mine originally from Kenya Africa told me yesterday that the common illiterate people of the rural countryside there completely cut down the forests for their fuel wood or the manufacture of Charcoal for European Bar-B-Q grill coals industry. They are not knowledgeable enough to understand that you need to replant. The horrific result has been more and more disruption in rainfall patterns. Well, how could that be ? After all, are not storms only clouds formed over oceans and moving over land masses dumping their contents - Right ? No, there is far more and people everywhere need to get this through their heads. The only way I can further explain the fine tuning influences vegetation plays in it's role of weather moderation is using a Car's Engine as a comparison. 

wikipedia

Anyone ever work on an early technology car or truck which had the old technology ignition system utilizing distributor points and condenser ? Many reading won't have a clue what I'm getting at, although I hope you do. Although the mechanical features of a vehicle's engine components are incredibly amazing and sophisticated, they would offer no mode of travel operation if they were not finely tuned. The old distributor system offered a timing solution which allowed for smooth driving operation. If the system was off in it's timing one point variation or another, the entire disruption would be very noticeable to the driver and perhaps any passengers. If the system's distributor were advanced by even a slight degree, then this off set  timing would create an over heating problem effect even though the automobile would still be quite capable of some functional movement. However, drive up a hill and you'll watch that  temperature gauge climb ever higher until the radiator wants to blow. I actually found this out by experience when someone gave me a dull olive green 1966 Dodge Bell Telephone Van with a Slant Six engine. Fun vehicle to drive, but I never understood the over heating I experienced till it was shown and explained to me by a mechanic. If the distributor timing is retarded, the engine shakes almost violently when the gas pedal is accelerated. The fascinating thing was, when you actually looked at the timing settings, the degree of change was not that much in order to create either a negative or positive response. The setting though had to be exact. As time went on however, this mechanical understanding for me has become clearer as an illustrative mirror to the living world's marvelous interactions between organisms and the Earth's environment.

Horizon: "Global Dimming"

To understand and appreciate how fractions of a degree can make a huge difference in climate, please watch the documentary on "Global Dimming" where a researcher, who after the no flight pattern was ordered after the 911 attacks on the World Trade Towers, proceeded to measure the temperature changes in the atmosphere which changed by a mere 1 degree after no flights were over North America for almost a week.

Meteo Systems International AG

Yes, the various components of physics on Earth's mechanical processes help to create and drive Earth's storm systems. The Coreolis Effect, Low & High Pressure, etc. But the weather hardware so to speak is like that cars engine. All the parts are important and will accomplish it's purposed outcome, but not properly functional without it's timing mechanisms. We can see what has happened as Earth's weather has made more abnormal destructive changes. In the case of climate and localized weather events, healthy vegetation is a must. Another easy way of illustrating the mechanism for weather moderation is what Meteo Systems of Switzerland claimed to have accomplished in 2011 in Dubai. They claimed at the time to have created 52 Thunderstorms which dropped rain in the desert on the Arabian Peninsula. While initially, they were vague in their explanation of what they accomplished and how they did it, if you did an actual research online of their Patents for their weather creation apparatus, the components revealed were vaguely familiar. In a nutshell they released electrical negative ions along with aerosols into the atmosphere. Now, they just didn't do this out of thin dry air. What they apparently did was they actually tapped into what is known as the Somalie Monsoonal Flow which travels up from the Horn of Africa east coast on it's way to Central Asia. This flow is merely heavily accumulated humid air for which they replicated an artificial industrial level forest system, for which real vegetation systems normally accomplish if it is in a health state within an ecosystem. There have also be News Reports and research studies which shed light on the destruction of the Amazon Basin's rain forests which are said to be effecting the weather of the entire South American continent. Well, how could this be if weather is nothing more than mere physics ?  

What's sad is that mankind has through their obsession with consumerism (among other disruptive motives or actions), has reverse engineered our planet's natural systems either knowingly or unknowingly in seeking the Earth's natural resources to drive their economic engines and it's only now after certain of these natural components are missing that we understand and feel their loss to the entire system. Whether or not people actually get this is irrelevant. The natural system has worked this way for countless thousands of years and it should be respected. It's a sort of, "If it's not broken why fix it" scenario. No amount of artificial weather modification is going to replace what is the reality. Unfortunately, the information on all of this is compartmentalized separately by Scientists working in various specialized fields. But they really need to dump their tunnel vision of focus or field of interest and come together with others of varying backgrounds in cooperation and sharing their research findings from their respective fields with one another if they truthfully want to get a handle on this phenomena known as 'Climate Change'. Of course we don't live in that type of cooperative world globally, although some may be open to the idea locally. But the Earth is going to reach a point of no return where all the reverse engineering itself may reach a point of not being able to being put back together again. Makes me think of my brother who dismantled my HO scale Diesel Electric locomotive to find out how it worked, only to be incapable of putting it back together again. But I have a feeling things will not be allowed to reach that point. What do you think ?        

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Reading References:

"System Potentials, a Novel Electrical Long-Distance Apoplastic Signal in Plants, Induced by Wounding" (2009)

Wikipedia: "Mechanically Timed Ignition"

Horizon: 'Global Dimming'

http://www.meteo-systems.com/