Field of Science

Acoustic Botany? Not hearing much.

Who hasn't thumped a melon to determine if its basso tones resonated with ripeness? But acoustic botany is sounding a little bit too new agey for the Phactor's tastes. Consider this statement: "Mankind altered nature for hundreds of years. Think of flowers and mind altering weeds." First sentence true. Second, um, not so. OK we've kept mutant sterile roses alive, and some plants do produce hallucinogens, but none because of human selective activities. Cannabis doesn't make THC because of humans, sorry, it isn't all about us. The rest of the brief narrative suggests the author really doesn't know very much about botany or the genetics of plant breeding. But maybe they can thump a mean melon, otherwise the Phactor isn't hearing very much.

1 comment:

mr_subjunctive said...

Well, no, THC was the idea of Cannabis originally, but how much THC most of the Cannabis plants currently alive in the world produce pretty much is because of humans.

That said, I'm sort of confused by the article -- it says the guy "designed" plants that produce noises, but as far as I can tell, this is a sculpture/art thing, not a genetics/science thing. Which is kind of disappointing.