Tag: Thomas Stig Wikman

Carbon Capture and Storage an Unfulfilled Promise

Superfact 99: Carbon capture is the process of separating carbon dioxide from industrial emissions. Even though it works and could be helpful it isn’t used very much, at least not the right way.

Esther’s writing prompt: April 29, 2026: Capture

Click here or here  to join in.

Carbon capture and storage is the process of separating carbon dioxide (CO2) from industrial emissions to prevent it from entering the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. There are also systems that can remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, but this is expensive. After capturing the carbon dioxide, it is compressed and stored permanently underground or used in products.

Capturing carbon dioxide from concentrated sources like ethanol or natural gas plants can cost as little as $15–$25 per ton, which should be compared to the huge cost from the damage to health and the environment caused by carbon dioxide added to atmosphere. This cost ranges from several hundred dollars per ton, to thousands of dollars per ton, and even one hundred thousand dollars per ton according to some estimates. Yet it has only captured about 0.1% of global emissions, making its overall climate impact negligible. Instead of storing the captured carbon dioxide it is often injected into nearly depleted oil wells to force out the remaining oil.

If you have not heard about carbon capture before, its existence may be a surprise to you. If you do know about carbon capture it is likely to come as a surprise to you that it is a potentially promising technology that is underutilized and not used correctly. The facts around this technology are surprising, which is why I call it a super fact.

The illustration shows a geological cross section and includes an ethanol plant, and a coal fired power plant capturing emissions buried below earth’s surface. | Carbon Capture and Storage an Unfulfilled Promise
With CCS, carbon dioxide is captured from a point source, such as an ethanol refinery. It is usually transported via pipelines and then either used to extract oil or stored in a dedicated geologic formation. Congressional Budget Office, U.S. Federal Government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Carbon dioxide and Global Warming

Global warming, or if you call it climate change, is happening and it is happening very fast. We also know that it is caused by us primarily as a result of our burning of fossil fuels. The primary culprit is carbon dioxide. There is a long-standing scientific consensus on these two/three facts because the evidence is conclusive. Some organizations and contrarians have successfully confused the public, but that does not mean there is a serious scientific discussion on the issue. To read more about this click here.

The damage caused by carbon dioxide to human health and the environment is difficult to assess, but you can get an idea, and you can put a dollar price on it. The economist William Nordhaus did this and got the Nobel Prize in economy for it in 2018. See my review for his book The Climate Casino. Now the question is what to do about it, and carbon capture and storage is one potential option.

Graph showing possible causes for the observed temperature (blue), natural causes (volcanic, solar), human and natural causes (volcanic, solar, greenhouse gases, NO2, ozone depletion).
Natural causes for global warming / climate change would have cooled the planet, not warm it. Click here to visit this NASA web page regarding the causes behind global warming.

Carbon capture and storage an unfulfilled promise

The following is to a large degree my opinion, not just fact. Carbon capture and storage is a good idea. However, it adds costs to the production of energy, a cost someone must pay for. It seems like a no brainer that if carbon dioxide creates a social cost of several hundred dollars per ton, then paying much less than that to mitigate the emissions would be a good idea. However, the social cost that carbon dioxide imposes on all of us is imposed on all of us whether we are responsible for the emissions or not. Whereas the cost for carbon capture is a cost to a specific company or person responsible for the emissions.

Even though the cost for carbon capture may only be a few dollars added to the natural gas bill or a few cents per gallon on a gas tank it is a cost that is not incurred by your competitor who is not doing carbon capture. Unless the governments of the world either pay for carbon capture or put a price on carbon emissions, carbon capture isn’t going to be economically viable.

In addition, carbon capture and storage has been disappointing in other ways. It has been more difficult and expensive than expected. It has been used to extract more fossil fuels rather than removing carbon emissions. In addition, renewable energy has become so cheap that it is cheaper to use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels with carbon capture.

My Other Responses to Esther’s Prompts

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Smorgasbord Blog Magazine shares Superfact number 19

Please take a look at Smorgasbord Blog Magazine’s of my super fact #19 “An account impersonating you on Facebook does not mean you have been hacked“.

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Thomas Wikman’s Superfacts – An account impersonating you on Facebook doesn’t mean you were hacked
To see the other Super Facts click here

Mosquitos and Snakes Kill Hundreds of Thousands of People Annually

Super fact 98 : The deadliest animals in the world are mosquitos, snakes and dogs. Mosquitos kill an estimated 760,000 people each year. Snakes kill an estimated 100,000 people each year. Dogs kill an estimated 40,000 people each year. By comparison humans kill on average 600,000 other humans annually due to wars and violence.

The picture feature purple bar graphs with animal pictures and animal names. The numbers indicate the number of people killed each year (well 2023) by an animal. The numbers are Mosquitos 760,000, Humans 600,000, Snakes 100,000, Dogs 40,000, Freshwater Snails 14,000, Kissing bugs 8,000, Sandflies 5,000, Roundworms 4,000, Scorpions 3,000, Tapeworms 2,000, Tsetse flies 1,500, Elephants 1,000, Bees, wasps and hornets 500, Big cats 300, Crocodiles > 150, Jellyfish 100, Hippopotamuses > 50, Spiders 50, Bears 20, Sharks 6, Gray wolves 5.
Estimates for the number of humans killed by different animals in 2023. Note: This is not an exhaustive list. Estimates come with significant uncertainty and are used for relative magnitude comparisons. Figures have been rounded to not overstate accuracy. Data sources: IHME; GBD (2025); World Health Organization; CrocAttack; ISAF; and others. See the full documentation at https://docs.owid.io/projects/etl/analyses/deadliest_animals/   OurWorldInData –  Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems.  Licensed under CC-BY by the authors Hannah Ritchie and Fiona Spooner.

The first time I heard that the deadliest animal in the world was the mosquito I was surprised. After I heard that the reason was all the diseases that mosquitos spread, such as malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever, it made more sense to me. I recently learned that snakes kill 100,000 people every year. It surprised me because it seemed like a lot to me.

I was also surprised to learn that our best friends the dogs, come in as number three on the list of deadliest animals, at an annual kill rate of 40,000 people. Even though scorpions are not at the top of the list they kill 3,000 people annually, while spiders only kill 50 people. We have both venomous spiders and scorpions where I live, but I’ve been worried about spiders, not scorpions. It is also surprising to me that sharks only kill about 6 people per year. I guess my super fact 98 is a collection of facts regarding “killer animals” rather than one specific fact. I am hoping that at least one of the facts will be surprising to you.

I should mention that the numbers vary over time and different sources give different statistics. Therefore, the numbers should be seen as ballpark numbers and not exactly. However, Our World in Data is considered one reputable and highly reliable data source that is frequently cited in scientific journals, and access is free.

Mosquitos Kill 760,000 People Each Year

Mosquitos are the biggest killers of humans by far. 80% of those deaths are the result of malaria which is transmitted and spread by the Anopheles mosquito. We have made progress against malaria, and it used to be worse. In the 20th century 150 to 200 million people died from malaria, which is more than one and half million people per year. Smallpox killed 300 million people in the 20th century, but it was entirely eradicated by 1977 thanks to the smallpox vaccine. The two existing vaccines for malaria are relatively recent (2021 & 2023), not as effective as the smallpox vaccine was, and not yet as widely used, which is one reason malaria is still a major health concern.

The picture shows a mosquito biting human skin. It is already filled up with blood. | Mosquitos and Snakes Kill Hundreds of Thousands of People Annually
The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads dengue fever and yellow fever. Original author: US Department of Agriculture; then denoised rescaled, enhanced with adaptive denoising filters and minimal resharpening, then unscaled to original resolution, for easier refitting at various resolutions., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

In addition, mosquitos spread other diseases killing more than 100,000 people every year. Dengue fever, yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis, are a few of the more dangerous mosquito borne diseases.

Snakes Kill 100,000 People Each Year

The death toll from venomous snakes is uncertain but it is likely to be 100,000 deaths per year. The World Health Organization estimates that snake bites kill between 81,410 and 137,880 each year.

The most venomous snake in the world is the Inland Taipan. Its venom can kill over 100 people in a single bite. However, due to its shy nature and remote Australian habitat, no human deaths have been attributed to it. The most dangerous snake to humans, in terms of fatalities, is often considered the Russell’s viper, responsible for 25,000 deaths annually. Other snakes that kill several thousand people every year are the saw-scaled viper, the common krait, the Indian cobra in Asia, and the black mamba.

The photo shows a brown speckled snake with a head that does not appear wider than the body unlike the head of vipers. | Mosquitos and Snakes Kill Hundreds of Thousands of People Annually
Inland Taipan. XLerate, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons.
The photo shows a light brown snake with dark brown spots and triangular viper head. | Mosquitos and Snakes Kill Hundreds of Thousands of People Annually
Russel’s Viper in the CME Dapodi campus. Photographed by Abhinav Chawla (self). AChawla, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A beige spectacled cobra with flared hood looking into the camera. | Mosquitos and Snakes Kill Hundreds of Thousands of People Annually
The Indian Cobra, here photographed at Hoskote, Karnataka, is one of the most dangerous snakes in all of Asia. Pavan Kumar N, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dogs Kill 40,000 People Each Year

Our mini-Australian Shepherd puppy Rollo is lying on a blanket.
Did you kill 40,000 people? Actually, our mini-Australian Shepherd Rollo did not kill anybody.

Even though there are some large and dangerous dogs, most deaths caused by dogs is from rabies resulting from being bitten by a rabies infected dog. See the horror movie Cujo.

Freshwater Snails, Kissing Bugs, Sandflies, Roundworms are Mass Killers

Other critters that kill thousand of people every year are freshwater snails, kissing bugs, sandflies, and roundworms. These critters kill people by infecting them with dangerous parasites or as in the case of roundworms, being a dangerous parasite.

Scorpions Kill 3,000 People Each Year but Spiders Only 50

I was at an overnight outing with the guys at work. I had just moved to Texas. We were standing or sitting around the fire drinking beer when I asked a question. I’ve heard about the scorpions in Texas, but I’ve never seen any. How common are scorpions?

A coworker named Gary told me to turn around, so I did. Behind me was a tree, and the tree was covered by crawling scorpions. Well, I was glad I did not lean on it. The scorpions I saw were the striped bark scorpion.

The reason scorpions kill a lot more people than spiders is that some scorpion species have a very potent and deadly venom. Some spiders are dangerous too, but spiders tend to have less potent venom.

A yellow, beige scorpion with light brown stripes.
Striped Bark Scorpion (Centruroides vittatus) Striped Bark Scorpion (Centruroides vittatus). Charles & Clint, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Big Cats kill only 300 People Annually and Sharks Only 6

Would you prefer to stay in a room with a Tiger or with a mosquito? Mosquitos kill 760,000 people every year, whilst Tigers only kill a handful of people every year. However, Tigers don’t kill less people than mosquitos because they are less dangerous than mosquitos. The difference is exposure. Mosquitos are everywhere but not Tigers. If Tigers were as common as people and everywhere people were, the numbers probably would be different.

Bengal Tiger walking next to a forest.
Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) female, Kanha National Park, India. Attribution: Charles James Sharp.

Other Posts Related to Animals

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Electrons Have Spin Without Spinning

Super fact 97 : Things that spin have an angular momentum and if electrically charged they also generate a magnetic field (magnetic dipole). This is true for electrons and many other elementary particles. However, electrons are not physically spinning. This “spin” is an intrinsic property like electrical charge or mass. In addition, the electron has “Spin 1/2,” meaning you must rotate its wave function 720 degrees (two full circles) to get back to where you started. Moreover, this half spin oddity makes the existence of matter possible.

The picture shows a red ball representing a particle with +1/2 spin and a blue particle with -1/2 spin. The red spinning ball creates a magnetic dipole with the north pointing up and the south down. The spinning blue ball does the opposite. | Electrons Have Spin Without Spinning
The electron behaves as if it were spinning about an axis, thereby generating a magnetic field whose direction depends on the direction of spin. Shutterstock asset id: 1945241416 by Fouad A. Saad.

An electron with spin +1/2 will align parallel with an external magnetic field while an electron with spin -1/2 will align in the opposite direction. The existence of intrinsic spin and the fact that the half spin property requires you to rotate the electron’s wave function twice to get back to where you started is very surprising. Particles with half spin (electrons, protons, positrons, muons, etc.) are called Fermions. It is also surprising that the half spin property makes the existence of matter possible. These true but surprising facts are important, which is why I consider this a super fact.

Angular Momentum and Magnetic Dipoles

On the left the illustration shows a man sitting on a rotating chair with his hands stretched out. In his hands he is holding dumbbells. The right side of the illustration depicts him bringing his hands close to his body resulting in the rotation speeding up. This is an example of the law of conservation of angular momentum.
The law of conservation of angular momentum. Shutterstock asset id: 1669028755 by DKN0049

The picture above gives an example of the law of conservation of angular momentum. Bringing weights closer to the body speeds up the rotation. Another example of the law of conservation of angular momentum is when you try to tip the axis of the rotation. This would be the man tipping over. You can’t do that without applying a force. The electron, and other subatomic particles with spin, display this gyroscopic effect, like a spinning top. As mentioned, charged particles such as the electron, positron or proton, also generate a magnetic field as if they were spinning. However, the strange fact is that despite that electrons and other particles with spin display these spin properties, they aren’t spinning.

Below is an overview of the elementary particles. An elementary particle is a fundamental subatomic building block of the universe that cannot be divided into smaller components. Notice that the proton and the neutron are not listed because they are not fundamental particles. They consist of three quarks. The top number is the mass (0.511 MeV/c2 for an electron). The number below that is the charge (-1 for an electron) and the bottom number is spin (1/2 for an electron). The diagram shows three intrinsic properties per particle.

This is periodic table style map showing the six quarks, six leptons and five bosons. | Electrons Have Spin Without Spinning
Elementary particles of the Standard Model from Wikipedia By Cush – Own work using:PBS NOVA [1], Fermilab, Office of Science, United States Department of Energy, Particle Data Group, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4286964

Electron Orbitals

I should explain something about particles and waves. Subatomic particles are associated with quantum waves. This is quantum mechanics. For example, an electron is in a sense both a particle and a wave, or more correctly neither. However, it exhibits both point like particle characteristics and wave characteristics depending on circumstances. Below is a picture showing the standing quantum waves representing an electron in different orbitals (different states) in a Hydrogen atom.

Hydrogen atoms only have one electron, but that electron can exist in different orbitals (sort of different orbits). A standing wave is a wave that is not spreading out, like the waves going back and forth in a bathtub. You can’t really say that the electron is orbiting the nucleus like a planet. The standing quantum wave, or electron cloud, or orbital are more accurate ways to view it.

The standing quantum waves look like spheres, or ellipses, or drops, all kinds of strange shapes.
Hydrogen electron orbitals, the electron’s charge distribution around the atom’s nucleus, quantum mechanics, Orbital shell, atomic orbital, electron cloud or wave mechanics model. Shutterstock asset id: 2500396483 by Watthana Tirahimonchan.

There is some confusion as to what the standing quantum waves represent. The Copenhagen interpretation says that the electron exists in superposition, or all possible states, until measured. The quantum wave indicates the probability that you will find the electron in a certain place when you measure. The square of the amplitude of the wave is the probability that you will find the electron at that point. When you measure it and find out where the electron is the wave will collapse.

Other interpretations say that the electron is in a specific place, you just don’t know where, but again the square of the amplitude of the wave is the probability that you will find the electron at that point. Yet other interpretations say that the quantum wave is a real physical thing that guides the electron (pilot waves). The so called many-worlds-interpretation say that all possible outcomes of a measurement happens but in an infinite number of parallel universes (multi-verses).

Then some people say that the quantum wave does not exist at all, other than as a probability distribution. It represents what the observer knows about the system, nothing else. If you don’t know where the electron is, then the wave is all over the place. If you measure where it is then the wave collapses. Then we also have the you-don’t-know-what-you-are-talking-about-just-shut-up-and-calculate interpretation. The latter interpretation is focused on using the equations, for example the Schrödinger and Dirac equations, to make predictions and measurements and it ignores what’s behind the scenes. This interpretation is popular in college physics classes.

Whichever interpretation you prefer, the you-must-fully-rotate-the-wave-function-twice-to-get-back-to-start property leads to the Pauli exclusion principle.

The Pauli Exclusion Principle

The Pauli exclusion principle states that two identical fermions (such as electrons) cannot occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. For example, two electrons in the same orbital must have opposite spin +1/2 and -1/2 and you could never add a third electron. This adds structure to the atom and to the nucleus. If you did not have the Pauli exclusion principle everything could just fall into one point, and you could walk through walls. Matter as we know it could not exist. This is why fermions (electrons, muons, positrons, quarks, protons, neutrons, etc.) often are referred to as matter particles and bosons (photons, gluons, etc.) are referred to as radiation.

It turns out that that the Pauli exclusion principle is a direct result of the half spin of fermions, in other words, that you have to rotate the associated wave twice around to get back to the original.

Do you think this is confusing ? Don’t feel bad. Richard Feyman one of the most prominent pioneers of quantum mechanics and Nobel Prize winner in physics said, “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”.

Other Super Facts Related to Modern Physics

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Is Plant Intelligence Real?

The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Super facts are important and true facts that nevertheless are very surprising to many, misunderstood, or disputed among the public. They are special facts that we all can learn something important from. However, I also make posts that are not super facts but feature other interesting information, such as this book review and book recommendation.

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger – May 7, 2024

Below I am listing the four versions of this book. I bought the hardback version.

  • Hardback –  Publisher : Harper (May 7, 2024), ISBN-10 : 0063073854, ISBN-13 : 978-0063073852, 304 pages, item weight : 2.31 pounds, dimensions : 6 x 0.92 x 9 inches. It costs $ 19.90 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Paperback –  Publisher : Harper Perennial (May 13, 2025), ISBN-10 : 0063073862, ISBN-13 : 978-0063073869, 304 pages, item weight : 11.2 ounces, dimensions : 5.5 x 0.75 x 8 inches. It costs $15.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle –  Publisher : Harper (May 7, 2024), ASIN : B0CFM4SMPF, 298 pages, it costs $ 14.99on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • • Audiobook – Publisher : Harper (May 7, 2024), ASIN : B0CJWQ6X99, Listening length : 10 hours and 56 minutes. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
The front cover features a plant on a black background, the title and author of the book and the phrase “How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth”. | The front cover of The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger.
The front cover of The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardback version of the book.

Amazon’s Description of the Book

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024 • TIME’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 • New York Magazine’s 10 Best Books of the Year • Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2024 • Smithsonian’s 10 Best Science Books of the Year •  A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, Scientific American,New York Public Library, Christian Science Monitor, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly • An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Nonfiction Prize • Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize • Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History

“A masterpiece of science writing.” ―Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass

“Mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful.” ―Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

“Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!” ―Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of natural history and popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom, “destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself.” (The New Yorker)

It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit―a fascinating display of plant behavior and sensory abilities, to name just a few remarkable talents.

The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In this captivating exploration of plant intelligence, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.

What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how insights into plant communication influence our understanding of what a plant is.

We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for―if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants―and our own place―in the natural world, tackling the enthralling question of plant consciousness along the way.

This is my five-star review for The Light Eaters

It is a truly great and fact filled book

Plant Behavior and Communication is Real. What about Plant Intelligence?

This is a very interesting book that describes the ways plants behave and communicate via chemicals, fungus, sound, electric signals and light. Many plants even exhibit memory functions and are able mimic the look of other plants from a distance. A leaf is the only thing in our known world that can manufacture sugar out of materials, light and air, that have never been alive. They can produce complex chemicals, like caffeine, that humans and animals can’t produce. If weighed, plants would amount to 80% of Earth’s living matter.

Plants can regrow virtually any amputated part. Some plants inject poisons into the ground around their roots to prevent anything else from growing nearby. Plants can recognize and protect their kin. Many plants will rearrange their leaves to avoid shading siblings. One of the points of the book is that we may have underestimated plants.

The book also discusses the possibility that plants may have a type of intelligence, perhaps even consciousness, depending on how you define it. This is a philosophical discussion. It should be noted that there was a very popular book in the 1970’s that made outlandish and pseudoscientific claims about plants. In the long run this book created a lot of skepticism towards claims within botany that seemed far-fetched despite collaborating evidence. The author laments this conservatism at the same time as she understands it.

There is a problem with getting unconventional work published in botany, at the same time the arduous peer-review process is an essential safeguard against false paths.

However, it has been established that plants do a lot of amazing things, and we are just beginning to realize the extent of plant behavior and communication. Some examples are, plants can communicate with each other even when they are too far apart to be passing information through their roots (perhaps pheromonal substances).

Plants produce electrical impulses and seem to have nodes at the tips of their roots that serve as local command centers. Plants can react to an attack of munching insects by summoning those insects’ specific predators to come and pick them up. They can perceive gravity, but we don’t know how. Primrose increases the sweetness of its nectar within three minutes if you play an audio recording of honeybee flight to it. Pea plants and many other plants grow their roots toward the sound of running water.

Other examples are, Tomatoes make thirty-five sounds per hour when drought stressed. Goldenrod can sense the volatile signals of nearby gall-forming flies and jump-start its immune system before the flies even make contact. Researchers who played tones at different frequencies to alfalfa sprouts for two hours saw that they increased the plants’ content of vitamin C. Plants can hear the caterpillars or pick up the vibrations they cause. Trichomes allow plants to sense the footsteps of moths and caterpillars.

Nasa poissoniana can store and recall information. It can remember the time intervals between bumble bee visits and anticipate the next time their pollinator was likely to arrive. Bittersweet nightshade recruit ants as bodyguards. Cornish mallow, a pink-flowered plant, will turn its leaves hours before sunrise to face the horizon in exactly the direction its expects the sun to rise. A common vine in this rainforest was capable of spontaneously morph into the shape of almost any plant it grew beside.

Plant mimicry is not that unusual. Scientists have long observed that virtually all plants are highly sensitive to touch of any kind and will change their growth accordingly. The book features several dozen more amazing examples of plant behavior, communication, sensing, and forms of memory including generational memory.

The book also delves into some other topics such as the importance of microbes for both plants and animals, including humans. Microbes influence our immune systems, our smells, and our attractiveness to mosquitos. Emerging research suggests that they may play a role in autism, depression, anxiety, and possible even who we are attracted to. The author also notes that pollution steadily filling the air appears to sabotage plants ability to send and interpret each other’s signals.

This is a book that is filled with interesting and perhaps even shocking information, and it certainly made me more interested in plants and botany. I think the book made the outlandish ideas about plant intelligence and conscience appear almost plausible. Plants are all around us and they are more interesting than I thought. The book is also well written and well organized. I should say that I did not think the first three chapters were very interesting, but it got better the further I read. I highly recommend this book.

The back cover features a picture of a plant on a black background and praise for the book. | The back cover of The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger.
The back cover of The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardback version of the book.
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