Smarty Plants

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an episode we first aired in 2018, we asked the question, do you really need a brain to sense the world around you? To remember? Or even learn? Well, it depends on who you ask. Jad and Robert, they are split on this one. Today, Robert drags Jad along on a parade for the surprising feats of brainless plants. Along with a home-inspection duo, a science writer, and some enterprising scientists at Princeton University, we dig into the work of evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, who turns our brain-centered worldview on its head through a series of clever experiments that show plants doing things we never would've imagined. Can Robert get Jad to join the march? We have some exciting news! In the “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named one of Venus's quasi-moons. Then, Radiolab teamed up with The International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons, so that you, our listeners, could help us name another, and we now have a winner!! Early next week, head over to https://radiolab.org/moon, to check out the new name for the heavenly body you all helped make happen. Sign-up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, happy new year. I'm Latif Nasser. This of course is Radio Lab. We have got all kinds of surprises in store for you this year, not even this year, like in the next few months, including the winner of our big year-long quasi-moon naming contest. There is a winner. It's just not official yet. We will announce it the moment
0:23.0	we are able to. But for now, as we take our first step into 2025, we wanted to rewind an episode
0:31.0	we first released in 2018. It's about plants and their incredible roots. And besides the fact that it's just super fun to listen to, part of the reason we're replaying it is almost as a reminder of our roots as a show in things like humor and wonder, which we are going to be working our best to dig up and dish up over the next year.
0:55.6	So to set us off on the right footing, here are Emeritus hosts, Jadden Robert, with Smarty Plants.
1:02.7	Wait, wait, you're listening.
1:04.2	Okay.
1:05.5	All right.
1:06.4	Okay.
1:08.0	All right.
1:09.4	You're listening to Radio Lab.
1:12.3	Radio Lab.
1:12.9	From W-N-Y-S-C.
1:15.8	See?
1:18.0	Rewind.
1:19.6	Rewind.
1:23.7	Where do we want us to say?
1:25.3	It doesn't matter.
1:25.7	One or the other.
1:26.4	That's it.
1:27.3	Got it. Casting one through this. That's a good. Got it.
1:28.3	Testing one through this, the headphones have, you know, I got that.
1:31.3	I'm Chad.
	...

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