Scientists Say Plants Can Remember And Think

A team of scientists led by Professor Stanislaw Karpinski from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland have discovered that just like humans, plants too have the ability to think and remember. In a series of experiments, scientists showed that plants transmit information of light intensity from one leaf to another through its cells, just like the nerves of our nervous system do.

To show that plants remember information, scientists exposed a leaf to light which caused the whole plant to respond in the form of chemical reactions in all the leaves. And when the light was off, the plant still continued to have reactions in its leaves, suggesting that it remembered all the information encoded in light.

Another significant discovery made by the team, was that the response of the plants varied depending on the color of the light that was shone on them.

Professor Karpinski explains:

When we shone the light for on the plant for one hour and then infected it [with a virus or with bacteria] 24 hours after that light exposure, it resisted the infection. But when we infected the plant before shining the light, it could not build up resistance. [So the plant] has a specific memory for the light which builds its immunity against pathogens, and it can adjust to varying light conditions.

Warsaw University of Life Sciences

BBC: “Plants ‘can think and remember’”