Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Plant communication

There have been various reports of plants communicating with each other. This seems to be a new discovery Roots exchane information at molecular level:
"It was thought that mRNA was very fragile and short-lived, so transferring it between species was impossible.
But Professor Westwood found that during this parasitic relationship, thousands upon thousands of mRNA molecules were being exchanged between both plants, creating an open dialogue between the species that allows them to freely communicate.
Through this exchange, the parasitic plants may be instructing the host plant to lower its defences so that they can more easily attack it.
Professor Westwood's hopes to discover precisely what the mRNA are 'saying'."


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