The Secret Language of Trees
Wonder Cabinet
Wonder Cabinet Productions
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2021
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Using a complex network of chemical signals, trees talk to each other and form alliances with fellow trees, even other species. In fact, whole forests exist as a kind of superorganism. And some trees are incredibly old. Did you know a single bristlecone pine can live up to 6,000 years? And the root mass of aspens might live 100,000 years? We explore the science and history of trees and talk with Richard Powers about his epic novel "The Overstory."
Original Air Date: April 28, 2018
Guests:
Mark Hirsch — Richard Powers — Suzanne Simard — Amos Clifford — Daegan Miller
Interviews In This Hour:
A Year In The Life Of A Tree — Listening to the Mother Trees — Richard Powers on Writing the Inner Life of Trees — Bathing in the Beauty of the Trees — General Sherman, Karl Marx, and Other Aliases of Earth's Largest Tree
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's to the best of our knowledge from PRX. |
| 0:05.5 | Trees are terrific. |
| 0:08.4 | They're the Earth's lungs. |
| 0:10.3 | They suck carbon out of the atmosphere and pump oxygen back in. |
| 0:13.9 | They're also the oldest living creatures on the planet. |
| 0:17.7 | There's a celebrated tree in Norway that's been dying and resurrecting for over 9,000 years. |
| 0:24.5 | Well, you're saying there's one tree that's been living for 9,000 years? |
| 0:28.0 | The root mass has been. |
| 0:29.7 | The root mass is on the order of 100,000 years old. |
| 0:33.0 | I'm Anne Strange Champs, and if trees are that old, could they also be wise? |
| 0:38.3 | You can think of this, like a huge brain growing out through the forest from this single tree. |
| 0:43.0 | Yeah, because it sounds like neural networks, right? |
| 0:44.8 | Yeah, basically they're like neural networks. |
| 0:47.4 | We've actually found that the patterning of the network is just the same as a neural network. |
| 0:52.9 | This hour, The secret life of trees. |
| 1:01.5 | Wisconsin Public Radio. |
| 1:08.8 | It's to the best of our knowledge. |
| 1:10.5 | I'm Anne Strangeamps. |
| 1:12.1 | When was the last time you really looked at, really thought about a tree? |
| 1:22.1 | There's this beautiful oak tree that I've admired for 19 years. |
| 1:25.5 | I'd looked at it with fond appreciation, but I never want to stop and took a picture of it. |
| 1:29.3 | Photojournalist Mark Hirsch. |
... |
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