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In this course, you will :
- Learn how plants distinguish between up and down, how they recognise when a neighbour has been infested by a swarm of hungry beetles, and whether they appreciate the music you've been playing for them or if they're simply deaf to the sounds around them.
- Examine definitions of memory and consciousness as they apply to plants, and consider whether plants are even aware of their surroundings.
- Introduce you to basic plant biology through the exploration of plant senses (sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste, balance).
- Get you started with biological research and the scientific method.
- Get the student to think about life in general and what makes us human.
Syllabus :
1. Introduction
- Our Life and Plants
- Plants and Biology Research
- Plants and Food Security
- Major Themes in Plant Biology
- Scientific Process
- The Evolution of Plant Structure and Senses
- Plant Evolution
2. What a Plant Sees?
- Darwin's Experiment
- Light and Flowering
- Phytochrome: A Light-Activated Switch
- Arabidopsis Blind Mutant
- What a Plant Sees?
- Molecular Biology of Plant Vision
3. What a Plant Smells?
- Lock and Key Mechanism of a Receptor
- Ethylene and Fruit Ripening
- Mechanism of Ethylene Recepto
- Plant Communication: Example
- Inter and Intra Communication
4. What a Plant Feels?
- How Does the Venus Trap Know When it has been Touched?
- Water and the Plant Cell
- Leaf Movement in Mimosa
- Thigmomorphogenesis
- Genes that Respond to Touch
- Do Plants Feel Pain?
- The Sound of Music and Plants
- Plants and Deaf Genes
- Sound Perception in Plants
5. How a Plant Knows Where it is?
- How a Plant Keeps its Balance
- Plant Response to Gravity
- Gravitropism in Roots
- The Discovery of Auxin
- Auxin Transport
- Auxin and Root Initiation
- Sensing Gravity
- Circumnutation
6. What a Plant Remembers?
- What a Plant Remembers?
- Short Term Memory
- Long Term Memory
- Epigenetic Heredity
- Intelligent Memory?
7. The Aware Plant
- Memory and Consciousness
- What Do We Mean When We Say "Intelligent"?
- A Tour of the Manna Center
- Research in the Chamovitz Lab
- Food Security
