What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses - Couverture souple

Chamovitz, Daniel

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0374533881 ISBN 13 : 9780374533885

Editeur : Scientific Amer Books, 2013

Synopsis

What a Plant Knows The enchanting look at the lives of plants, from the colours they see to the schedules they keep, in time for the start of the planting season Full description

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

“Thick with eccentric plant experiments and astonishing plant science... Delightful” - The Sunday Times

“Exhilarating” - The RHS Garden

“Elegantly written... Chamovitz lets us see plants in a new light, one which reveals their true wonder.” - The Guardian

“Chamovitz's book is pop science at its best, full of vivid examples of barely imaginable ways of living”

--BBC Wildlife, Book of the Month

“An intriguing and scientific - but easy to read - look at how plants experience life ” - Gardens Illustrated

“Plants may be brainless, eyeless and devoid of senses as we know them, but they have a rudimentary “awareness”, says biologist Daniel Chamovitz. In this beautiful reframing of the botanical, he reveals the extent and kind of that awareness through a bumper crop of research.” - Nature

“The reader... will find enough absorbing science to concede that plants continue to inspire and amaze us.” - Wall Street Journal

“By comparing human senses to the abilities of plants to adapt to their surroundings, the author provides a fascinating and logical explanation of how plants survive despite the inability to move from one site to another.”

--Kirkus Reviews

“What a Plant Knows is lively, eloquent, scientifically accurate, and easy-to-read... I commend this engaging text to all who wonder about life on Earth, and seek a compelling introduction to the lives of plants revealed through centuries of careful scientific experimentation.” - Professor Stephen D. Hopper, Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

“Chamovitz walks the Homo sapiens reader right into the shoes - or I should say roots - of the plant world. You will marvel and be haunted by a plant's sensory attributes and the shared genes between the plant and animal kingdoms.” - Elisabeth Tova Bailey, author of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

“With deftness and clarity, Chamovitz introduces plants' equivalents of our senses, plus floral forms of memory and orientation. When you realize how much plants know, you may think twice before you bite them!” - Hannah Holmes, author of Suburban Safari

“Just as his groundbreaking research uncovered connections between the plant and animal kingdoms, Daniel Chamovitz's insights in What a Plant Knows transcend the world of plants. You'll see plants in a new light after reading this book.” - Gloria Coruzzi, Professor of Biology, New York University

“A fascinating book that explores accessibly the evidence that plants share more properties with animals than most people appreciate.”

--John and Mary Gribbin, authors of The Flower Hunters

Présentation de l'éditeur

How does a Venus flytrap know when to snap shut? Can it feel an insect's spindly legs? How do flowers know when it's spring? Can they actually remember the weather? And do they care if you play them Led Zeppelin or Bach? From Darwin's early fascination with stems and vines to "Little Shop of Horrors," we have always marveled at plant diversity and form. Now, in "What a Plant Knows," the renowned biologist Daniel Chamovitz presents an intriguing and refreshing look at how plants experience the world. Highlighting the latest research in plant science, he takes us into the lives of different types of plants, and draws parallels with the human senses to reveal that we have much more in common with sunflowers and oak trees than we may realize. He explains how a willow knows when its neighbors have been taken over by a group of hungry beetles, and why an avocado will ripen in a paper bag with a banana (it's the pheromones). He shows how plants know up from down, and settles the debate, once and for all, over whether or not plants appreciate that music you've been playing. Covering touch, sound, smell, sight, and even memory, Chamovitz considers whether it's too much to ask if plants are aware.
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What a Plant Knows "is a rare inside look at what life is really like for the grass we walk on, the flowers we sniff, and the trees we climb. It is a true field guide to the senses for science buffs and green thumbs, and for anyone who seeks a greater understanding of our place in nature.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Scientific Amer Books
• Date d'édition: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0374533881
• ISBN 13: 9780374533885
• Reliure: Broché
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 177
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible