Sometimes I go browsing [through] a very old magazine. I found this observation test about the story of the ark. And the artist that drew this observation test did some errors, had some mistakes -- there are more or less 12 mistakes. Some of them are very easy. There is a funnel, an aerial part, a lamp and clockwork key on the ark. Some of them are about the animals, the number. But there is a much more fundamental mistake in the overall story of the ark that's not reported here. And this problem is: where are the plants? So now we have God that is going to submerge Earth permanently or at least for a very long period, and no one is taking care of plants. Noah needed to take two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, of every kind of creature that moves, but no mention about plants. Why? In another part of the same story, all the living creatures are just the living creatures that came out from the ark, so birds, livestock and wild animals. Plants are not living creatures -- this is the point. That is a point that is not coming out from the Bible, but it's something that really accompanied humanity.
Ponekad idem prelistavati jako stari časopis. Našao sam ovaj test opažanja o priči o arci. Umjetnik koji je naslikao taj test opažanja napravio je neke pogreške. Ima više manje 12 grešaka. Neke od njih su vrlo lake. Tu je dimnjak, dio antene, lampa i satni mehanizam na arci. Neke od njih su u vezi životinja, njihovog broja. Ali postoji puno bitnija greška u cjelokupnoj priči o arci koja ovdje nije navedena. A taj problem glasi: gdje su biljke? Tako da imamo Boga koji će potopiti Zemlju trajno ili barem na vrlo dugo vrijeme, a nitko se ne brine o biljkama. Noa je trebao uzeti par od svake vrste ptica, svake vrste životinja, svake vrste stvorenja koje se kreće, ali ni spomena o biljkama. Zašto? U drugom dijelu iste priče sva živa bića su samo živa bića koja su izašla iz arke, dakle, ptice, domaće i divlje životinje. Biljke nisu živa bića. U tom je poanta. To je poanta koja ne proizlazi iz Biblije, ali to je nešto što je uvijek pratilo čovječanstvo.
Let's have a look at this nice code that is coming from a Renaissance book. Here we have the description of the order of nature. It's a nice description because it's starting from left -- you have the stones -- immediately after the stones, the plants that are just able to live. We have the animals that are able to live and to sense, and on the top of the pyramid, there is the man. This is not the common man. The "Homo studiosus" -- the studying man. This is quite comforting for people like me -- I'm a professor -- this to be over there on the top of creation. But it's something completely wrong. You know very well about professors. But it's also wrong about plants, because plants are not just able to live; they are able to sense. They are much more sophisticated in sensing than animals. Just to give you an example, every single root apex is able to detect and to monitor concurrently and continuously at least 15 different chemical and physical parameters. And they also are able to show and to exhibit such a wonderful and complex behavior that can be described just with the term of intelligence. Well, but this is something -- this underestimation of plants is something that is always with us.
Pogledajmo ovaj krasan kodeks koji dolazi iz renesansne knjige. Ovdje imamo opis poretka u prirodi. To je lijepi opis jer počinje s lijeva -- imate kamenje -- odmah nakon kamenja, biljke koje su sposobne samo živjeti. Imamo životinje koje su sposobne živjeti i osjećati, a na vrhu piramide je čovjek. To nije običan čovjek. To je "Homo studiosus" -- čovjek koji uči. Prilično je utješno za ljude poput mene -- ja sam profesor -- da to bude tamo na vrhu kreacije. Ali to je nešto potpuno pogrešno. Znate jako dobro za profesore. Ali također je pogrešno i u vezi biljaka, jer biljke nisu sposobne samo živjeti; one su sposobne osjećati. One su puno profinjenije u osjećanju od životinja. Samo da vam dam primjer, svaki vršak korijena u stanju je otkriti i nadzirati, istovremeno i neprestano, barem 15 različitih kemijskih i fizičkih čimbenika. A također su sposobni pokazati i predočiti tako prekrasno i složeno ponašanje koje se može opisati samo pojmom inteligencije. Ali to je nešto -- to podcjenjivanje biljaka je nešto što je uvijek s nama.
Let's have a look at this short movie now. We have David Attenborough. Now David Attenborough is really a plant lover; he did some of the most beautiful movies about plant behavior. Now, when he speaks about plants, everything is correct. When he speaks about animals, [he] tends to remove the fact that plants exist. The blue whale, the biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is wrong, completely wrong. The blue whale, it's a dwarf if compared with the real biggest creature that exists on the planet -- that is, this wonderful, magnificent Sequoiadendron giganteum. (Applause) And this is a living organism that has a mass of at least 2,000 tons. Now, the story that plants are some low-level organisms has been formalized many times ago by Aristotle, that in "De Anima" -- that is a very influential book for the Western civilization -- wrote that the plants are on the edge between living and not living. They have just a kind of very low-level soul. It's called the vegetative soul, because they lack movement, and so they don't need to sense. Let's see.
Pogledajmo sada ovaj kratki film. Imamo David Attenborougha. David Attenborough. je stvarno ljubitelj biljaka. Snimio je neke od najljepših filmova o ponašanju biljaka. Kada on govori o biljkama sve je točno. Kada govori o životinjama sklon je zanemariti činjenicu da biljke postoje. Plavi kit, najveće stvorenje koje postoji na planeti. To je pogrešno, potpuno pogrešno. Plavi kit, on je patuljak u usporedbi sa stvarno najvećim stvorenjem koje postoji na planeti -- to je ova predivna, čarobna gigantska sekvoja (Sequoiadendron giganteum). (Pljesak) To je živući organizam koji ima masu od barem 2.000 tona. Priču o tome da su biljke nekakvi organizmi niže razine formulirao je davno Aristotel, koji je u knjizi "O duši" ("De Anima") -- koja je vrlo utjecajna knjiga za zapadnu civilizaciju -- napisao da su biljke na granici između življenja i ne-življenja. Da imaju samo neku vrstu duše vrlo niske razine. Nazvana je vegetativnom dušom, jer biljkama nedostaje kretanje, pa zato ne trebaju osjećati. Da vidimo.
Okay, some of the movements of the plants are very well-known. This is a very fast movement. This is a Dionaea, a Venus fly trap hunting snails -- sorry for the snail. This has been something that has been refused for centuries, despite the evidence. No one can say that the plants were able to eat an animal, because it was against the order of nature. But plants are also able to show a lot of movement. Some of them are very well known, like the flowering. It's just a question to use some techniques like the time lapse. Some of them are much more sophisticated. Look at this young bean that is moving to catch the light every time. And it's really so graceful; it's like a dancing angel. They are also able to play -- they are really playing. These are young sunflowers, and what they are doing cannot be described with any other terms than playing. They are training themselves, as many young animals do, to the adult life where they will be called to track the sun all the day. They are able to respond to gravity, of course, so the shoots are growing against the vector of gravity and the roots toward the vector of gravity. But they are also able to sleep. This is one, Mimosa pudica. So during the night, they curl the leaves and reduce the movement, and during the day, you have the opening of the leaves -- there is much more movement. This is interesting because this sleeping machinery, it's perfectly conserved. It's the same in plants, in insects and in animals. And so if you need to study this sleeping problem, it's easy to study on plants, for example, than in animals and it's much more easy even ethically. It's a kind of vegetarian experimentation.
U redu, neki pokreti biljaka su vrlo dobro poznati. Ovo je vrlo brzi pokret. Ovo je biljka mesožderka (Dionaea) u lovu na puževe. Oprostite zbog puža. Ovo je nešto što se stoljećima odbijalo unatoč dokazu. Nitko nije mogao reći da su biljke sposobne pojesti životinju, jer je to protivno prirodnom poretku. Ali biljke su također sposobne pokazati mnoge pokrete. Neki od njih su vrlo dobro poznati, poput cvjetanja. To je samo pitanje uporabe nekih tehnika kao što je vremenski interval. Neki od njih su puno profinjeniji. Pogledajte ovaj mladi grah koji se kreće kako bi svaki put uhvatio svjetlost. A stvarno je tako uglađen. Poput anđela koji pleše. Biljke su sposobne i igrati se. One se zaista igraju. Ovo su mladi suncokreti, a to što oni rade ne može se opisati nijednim drugim pojmom osim igranja. Oni se uvježbavaju, kao što to čine mnogi mladunci, za odrasli život kada će trebati pratiti sunce cijeli dan. Biljke su, naravno, sposobne reagirati i na gravitaciju, pa izdanci rastu suprotno vektoru gravitacije, a korijenje u smjeru vektora gravitacije. One su također sposobne i spavati. Ovo je mimoza stidljivka (Mimosa pudica). Noću ona smota lišće i smanji kretanje, a danju otvara lišće -- tu je puno više kretanja. To je zanimljivo zato što je taj spavajući stroj savršeno čuvan. Isto je sa biljkama, insektima i životinjama. Pa, ako trebate proučavati taj problem spavanja, lakše je proučavati biljke, na primjer, nego životinje, a puno je lakše, pa čak i više etički. To je vrsta vegetarijanskog eksperimentiranja.
Plants are even able to communicate -- they are extraordinary communicators. They communicate with other plants. They are able to distinguish kin and non-kin. They communicate with plants of other species and they communicate with animals by producing chemical volatiles, for example, during the pollination. Now with the pollination, it's a very serious issue for plants, because they move the pollen from one flower to the other, yet they cannot move from one flower to the other. So they need a vector -- and this vector, it's normally an animal. Many insects have been used by plants as vectors for the transport of the pollination, but not just insects; even birds, reptiles, and mammals like bats rats are normally used for the transportation of the pollen. This is a serious business. We have the plants that are giving to the animals a kind of sweet substance -- very energizing -- having in change this transportation of the pollen. But some plants are manipulating animals, like in the case of orchids that promise sex and nectar and give in change nothing for the transportation of the pollen.
Biljke su čak sposobne komunicirati. One su izvanredni komunikatori. One komuniciraju sa drugim biljkama. Sposobne su razlikovati srodne i nesrodne biljke. One komuniciraju sa biljkama i drugim vrstama, a sa životinjama komuniciraju proizvodeći kemijska isparavanja, na primjer, za vrijeme oprašivanja. Oprašivanje je vrlo ozbiljno pitanje za biljke, jer raznose pelud s jednog cvijeta na drugi, iako se ne mogu kretati od jednog do drugog cvijeta. Stoga trebaju vektor, a taj vektor je obično životinja. Mnoge insekte biljke koriste kao vektore kao transport za oprašivanje, ali ne samo insekte; čak i ptice, gušteri i sisavci poput šišmiša obično se koriste za prijenos peluda. To je ozbiljan posao. Imamo biljke koje životinjama daju neku vrstu slatke tvari -- vrlo energetske -- u zamjenu za taj prijenos peluda. Ali neke biljke manipuliraju životinjama, kao što je slučaj s orhidejama koje obećavaju seks i nektar, a ne daju ništa u zamjenu za prijenos peluda.
Now, there is a big problem behind all this behavior that we have seen. How is it possible to do this without a brain? We need to wait until 1880, when this big man, Charles Darwin, publishes a wonderful, astonishing book that starts a revolution. The title is "The Power of Movement in Plants." No one was allowed to speak about movement in plants before Charles Darwin. In his book, assisted by his son, Francis -- who was the first professor of plant physiology in the world, in Cambridge -- they took into consideration every single movement for 500 pages. And in the last paragraph of the book, it's a kind of stylistic mark, because normally Charles Darwin stored, in the last paragraph of a book, the most important message. He wrote that, "It's hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radical acts like the brain of one of the lower animals." This is not a metaphor. He wrote some very interesting letters to one of his friends who was J.D. Hooker, or at that time, president of the Royal Society, so the maximum scientific authority in Britain speaking about the brain in the plants.
Postoji veliki problem iza svog tog ponašanja koje smo vidjeli. Kako je to moguće činiti bez mozga? Trebamo čekati do 1880. godine, kada je taj veliki čovjek, Charles Darwin, objavio prekrasnu, zadivljujuću knjigu koja započinje revoluciju. Naslov je "Moć pokretljivosti kod biljaka." Nikome nije bilo dozvoljeno govoriti o kretanju kod biljaka prije Charlesa Darwina. U njegovoj knjizi, uz pomoć njegova sina, Francisa -- koji je bio prvi profesor psihologije biljaka u svijetu, u Cambridgeu -- razmotrili su svaki pojedini pokret na 500 stranica. A u zadnjem poglavlju knjige, to je neka vrsta stilske oznake, jer je Charles Darwin obično stavljao u zadnje poglavlje knjige najvažniju poruku. Napisao je, "Teško da je pretjerivanje reći da se vrh korijena ponaša poput mozga jedne niže razvijene životinje." To nije metafora. Napisao je neka vrlo zanimljiva pisma jednom svom prijatelju, J.D. Hookeru, koji je u to vrijeme bio predsjednik Kraljevskog društva, pa tako najveći znanstveni autoritet u Britaniji, govoreći o mozgu u biljkama.
Now, this is a root apex growing against a slope. So you can recognize this kind of movement, the same movement that worms, snakes and every animal that are moving on the ground without legs is able to display. And it's not an easy movement because, to have this kind of movement, you need to move different regions of the root and to synchronize these different regions without having a brain. So we studied the root apex and we found that there is a specific region that is here, depicted in blue -- that is called the "transition zone." And this region, it's a very small region -- it's less than one millimeter. And in this small region you have the highest consumption of oxygen in the plants and more important, you have these kinds of signals here. The signals that you are seeing here are action potential, are the same signals that the neurons of my brain, of our brain, use to exchange information. Now we know that a root apex has just a few hundred cells that show this kind of feature, but we know how big the root apparatus of a small plant, like a plant of rye. We have almost 14 million roots. We have 11 and a half million root apex and a total length of 600 or more kilometers and a very high surface area.
Ovo je vršak korijena koji raste uzbrdo. Možete prepoznati tu vrstu kretanja, istog kretanja kakvo su crvi, zmije i svaka životinja koja se kreće po tlu bez nogu u stanju prikazati. A to nije lako kretanje, jer, da biste se tako kretali, trebate pokretati različita područja korijena i uskladiti ta različita područja bez mozga. Proučavali smo vrh korijena i otkrili da postoji određeno područje koje je ovdje obojano u plavo -- nazovimo ga tranzicijska zona. A to područje, to je vrlo malo područje. Manje je od jednog milimetra. U tom malom području imate najveću potrošnju kisika u biljkama i, još važnije, ovdje imate ove vrste signala. Signali koje ovdje vidite su potencijal za djelovanje, to su isti signali koje neuroni mog mozga, našeg mozga, koriste za razmjenu informacija. Sada znamo da vrh korijena ima samo nekoliko stotina stanica koje pokazuju tu vrstu značajke, ali znamo kako je velik vrh korijena male biljke, kao što je raž. Imamo gotovo 14 milijuna korijena. Imamo 11 i pol milijuna vrhova korijena ukupne dužine 600 i više kilometara i ogromne površine.
Now let's imagine that each single root apex is working in network with all the others. Here were have on the left, the Internet and on the right, the root apparatus. They work in the same way. They are a network of small computing machines, working in networks. And why are they so similar? Because they evolved for the same reason: to survive predation. They work in the same way. So you can remove 90 percent of the root apparatus and the plants [continue] to work. You can remove 90 percent of the Internet and it is [continuing] to work. So, a suggestion for the people working with networks: plants are able to give you good suggestions about how to evolve networks.
Zamislimo sada da svaki pojedini vrh korijena radi u mreži sa svima drugima. Ovdje imamo s lijeve strane internet, a s desne aparaturu korijena. Funkcioniraju na isti način. To su mreže malih računalnih strojeva koji rade u mrežama. A zašto su toliko slični? Zato što su se razvili iz istog razloga: da prežive grabežljivce. Funkcioniraju na isti način. Možete ukloniti 90 posto aparature korijena, a biljka će nastaviti funkcionirati. Možete ukloniti 90 posto Interneta i on će nastaviti funkcionirati. Dakle, prijedlog za ljude koji rade sa mrežama: biljke su vam sposobne dati dobre prijedloge o tome kako razvijati mreže.
And another possibility is a technological possibility. Let's imagine that we can build robots and robots that are inspired by plants. Until now, the man was inspired just by man or the animals in producing a robot. We have the animaloid -- and the normal robots inspired by animals, insectoid, so on. We have the androids that are inspired by man. But why have we not any plantoid? Well, if you want to fly, it's good that you look at birds -- to be inspired by birds. But if you want to explore soils, or if you want to colonize new territory, to best thing that you can do is to be inspired by plants that are masters in doing this. We have another possibility we are working [on] in our lab, [which] is to build hybrids. It's much more easy to build hybrids. Hybrid means it's something that's half living and half machine. It's much more easy to work with plants than with animals. They have computing power, they have electrical signals. The connection with the machine is much more easy, much more even ethically possible. And these are three possibilities that we are working on to build hybrids, driven by algae or by the leaves at the end, by the most, most powerful parts of the plants, by the roots.
A druga mogućnost je tehnološka mogućnost. Zamislimo da možemo napraviti robote koji su inspirirani biljkama. Do sada, čovjeka je inspirirao samo čovjek ili životinje u proizvodnji robota. Imamo animaloida -- normalnog robota inspiriranog životinjama, insektoida i tako dalje. Imamo androide koji su inspirirani čovjekom. Ali zašto nemamo nijedan plantoid? Ako želite letjeti, dobro je da promotrite ptice, da vas inspiriraju ptice. Ali ako želite istražiti tlo ili ako želite nastaniti novi teritorij, najbolja stvar koju možete učiniti je ta da vas inspiriraju biljke koje su u tome majstori. Imamo još jednu mogućnost na kojoj radimo u našem laboratoriju, a to je da napravimo hibride. Puno je lakše napraviti hibride. Hibrid znači da je to nešto što je pola živo biće, a pola stroj. Puno je lakše raditi sa biljkama nego sa životinjama. One imaju moć proračunavanja. One imaju električne signale. Veza sa strojem je puno lakša, čak i više etički moguća. Ovo su tri mogućnosti na kojima radimo kako bismo napravili hibride, koje pokreću alge ili lišće na kraju, pomoću najmoćnijih dijelova biljaka, pomoću korijenja.
Well, thank you for your attention. And before I finish, I would like to reassure that no snails were harmed in making this presentation. Thank you.
Hvala vam za vašu pažnju. Prije nego što završim želio bih vas razuvjeriti kako nijedan puž nije bio ozlijeđen prilikom izrade ove prezentacije. Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)