Post by wvumaryjane on Nov 1, 2007 16:35:01 GMT -5
About a year ago, Mythbusters did this experiment.. They used a lie detector and I think EEG.. on plants and a few other non living things, and I don't know what their results were because i didn't see the show..
However, one of the Docs at the hospital has a son that has a high school project about this and he KNEW our department had at least an EEG machine and he's solicited our help. The kids can't do their experiment just yet as they have just planted 40 bean plants for the experiement..
But that didn't stop us from messing around today. We were REALLY bored. Anyways.. we had an IVY plant in the office, and you guessed it.. We started experimenting. We used needle electrodes and started recording electrical activity of this ivy plant. And guess what? We got some.. and the activity changed when we did various things to the plant.. put a flame near it.. add warm water to the roots.. or cold water.. we placed an ice chip on a leaf.. and got a different reaction.. We pierced the plant and got a different pattern.. The most sustained pattern we got was about 9 minutes in duration.
To make sure this wasn't just crazy movement artifact or something else we attempted to record activity from my shoe, and then from a banana. We got TOTALLY nothing from the shoe, and we got NEXT to nothing from the banana.. but at least with the needles in the banana, it was able to record.
So then, we decided to get the EMG machine out. This is a machine that listens to MUCLE fibers to detect disease.. The Plant produced an underlying but rhythmic noise.. The banana produced no underlying sounds at all.
Tomorrow we're going to play with a venus fly trap.. hahahahaha How cool it is.
However, one of the Docs at the hospital has a son that has a high school project about this and he KNEW our department had at least an EEG machine and he's solicited our help. The kids can't do their experiment just yet as they have just planted 40 bean plants for the experiement..
But that didn't stop us from messing around today. We were REALLY bored. Anyways.. we had an IVY plant in the office, and you guessed it.. We started experimenting. We used needle electrodes and started recording electrical activity of this ivy plant. And guess what? We got some.. and the activity changed when we did various things to the plant.. put a flame near it.. add warm water to the roots.. or cold water.. we placed an ice chip on a leaf.. and got a different reaction.. We pierced the plant and got a different pattern.. The most sustained pattern we got was about 9 minutes in duration.
To make sure this wasn't just crazy movement artifact or something else we attempted to record activity from my shoe, and then from a banana. We got TOTALLY nothing from the shoe, and we got NEXT to nothing from the banana.. but at least with the needles in the banana, it was able to record.
So then, we decided to get the EMG machine out. This is a machine that listens to MUCLE fibers to detect disease.. The Plant produced an underlying but rhythmic noise.. The banana produced no underlying sounds at all.
Tomorrow we're going to play with a venus fly trap.. hahahahaha How cool it is.
