Plants send SOS signal to insects - Polidicks

Plants can summon insects to their aid to avoid being munched to death by caterpillars, scientists have found. Leafy tobacco plants have evolved a "chemical SOS" that attracts predatory insects that eat the attackers. In the journal Science, researchers revealed that the caterpillars' saliva activates this signal. The modified signal causes Geocoris insects, which feed on the caterpillar larvae and eggs, to swoop in - rescuing the plant and gaining a meal. The work was carried out by Silke Allmann of the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Ian Baldwin of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany. They discovered that when the plants were attacked by tobacco hornworm caterpillars, Manduca sexta, the caterpillar saliva caused a chemical change in "green leaf volatiles" - pungent chemicals that the plants produce. The familiar smell of cut grass is generated by green leaf volatiles (GLVs). The scientists studied the effect further by setting up a fake plant attack. They glued caterpillar eggs onto two groups of tobacco plants, using cotton swabs to coat the eggs on one group of plants with the plant's own GLVs. The eggs on the other plants were treated with GLV mixed with caterpillar spit. The plants "perfumed" with the plant chemical alone had only 8% of their eggs attacked, whereas plants perfumed with the plant and caterpillar-derived chemical mixture chemical lost almost a quarter of their eggs. All of these missing eggs had been eaten by the Geocoris bugs, which were attracted by the chemicals. The modified chemical seems to "betray the location of the feeding caterpillar", the researchers concluded in their paper. "Why the larvae would produce such an apparently [disadvantageous chemical] in their saliva remains to be determined." Source:[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11101536[/url] Awesome!

Wow, that's far more intelligence than I would expect from a plant. That's more intelligence than I would expect from a lot of organisms. But tobacco?

Next thing we'll find out they send out odd, nondescript signals that elude the insects and confuse them on what it could mean.

[QUOTE=TheHydra;24396506]Wow, that's far more intelligence than I would expect from a plant. That's more intelligence than I would expect from a lot of organisms. But tobacco?[/QUOTE] It isn't intelligence at all. It's a chemical reaction.

Nature got a new patch to fix the unbalances.

I read the thread title as "Planets send SOS signal to insects"

[QUOTE=TheHydra;24396506]Wow, that's far more intelligence than I would expect from a plant. That's more intelligence than I would expect from a lot of organisms. But tobacco?[/QUOTE] It isn't intelligence as much as it is a mechanism

that's pretty fucking neat-o

[QUOTE=TheHydra;24396506]Wow, that's far more intelligence than I would expect from a plant. That's more intelligence than I would expect from a lot of organisms. But tobacco?[/QUOTE] It's not intelligence, plants can do the same themselves and always do thanks to their own chemistry, that's why most leaves have holes everywhere from caterpillars and not just in one area. Volatile secondary chemicals man, love that shit :science:

Fucking burn the plants before they put us into slavery

*joke about The Happening*

I swear I read something like this in a Horrible Science book years and years ago [img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/6161AWRRTBL._SL500_AA300_.jpg[/img] possibly this one

[QUOTE=TheHydra;24396506]Wow, that's far more intelligence than I would expect from a plant. That's more intelligence than I would expect from a lot of organisms. But tobacco?[/QUOTE] It's just what they do, they don't THINK about it. In your logic all animals are insanely smart because their body can sustain itself and work (because of how complex it would be for one creature to do it)

[QUOTE=Mad Chatter;24397040]*joke about The Happening*[/QUOTE] In theory there's nothing to say that couldn't happen, and that's the worrying part, mind you plants don't have the perception of scale, they just know there's plants somewhere and there's other stuff and that stuffs doing stuff and that makes stuff happen.

They did a study once on vegetables being cut apart, they hooked up 2 carrots and connected electrodes and noticed when they cut one carrot the other carrots reacted to the signal being sent out from the cut carrot. So much for being morally superior vegetarians. :smug:

[QUOTE=Tetracycline;24397126]It's just what they do, they don't THINK about it. In your logic all animals are insanely smart because their body can sustain itself and work (because of how complex it would be for one creature to do it)[/QUOTE] I thought the chemical reaction happened manually, not automatically. I fucked up.

[QUOTE=superdinoman;24397373]They did a study once on vegetables being cut apart, they hooked up 2 carrots and connected electrodes and noticed when they cut one carrot the other carrots reacted to the signal being sent out from the cut carrot. So much for being morally superior vegetarians. :smug:[/QUOTE] Connected electrodes? Whoa man what

[QUOTE=TheHydra;24397432]I thought the chemical reaction happened manually, not automatically. I fucked up.[/QUOTE] Yeah, it's no problem

Nerf it, the leaf is OP. Fucking griefers, can't a caterpillar get a break.

"Help me these motherfuckers are ripping me out HELP YOU FUCKS HELP"

Newsflash: tobacco plants send out a chemical SOS to humans called nicotine so the species will thrive. The botany of desire, my friends, the botany of desire.

[QUOTE=TheHydra;24396506]Wow, that's far more intelligence than I would expect from a plant. That's more intelligence than I would expect from a lot of organisms. But tobacco?[/QUOTE] If this counts as intelligence you must be absolutely amazed by those plants that eat flies.

[QUOTE=nickohlus;24399479]Newsflash: tobacco plants send out a chemical SOS to humans called nicotine so the species will thrive. The botany of desire, my friends, the botany of desire.[/QUOTE] Pure nicotine is actually one of the most dangerous natural substances ever, [I]ever[/I] we're talking Dimethylmercury level toxic here

So this is the reason why cut grass smells so good? That's a pretty cool fact to know really. (But if that's true wouldn't that make me WANT to cut the grass?)