Dr. Grace Weiland loved her plants more than everything. Every minute she didn’t have to spend at work, she took care of her huge collection, growing inside the greenhouse she designed herself.
It was a big greenhouse with different climate zones, automatic sprinklers and machines that controlled the humidity. Nobody but her was allowed to set a foot in it. Then again, nobody wanted to, for a very good reason.
All of the plants had been heavily genetically modified. Not the kind of genetic modification that was used on crops to make them more resistant against herbicides, no. Grace had changed her plants’ genetic code so much that most of them didn’t even resemble any known plants anymore.
They grew bigger, stronger and more colorful than anything anyone had ever seen. And Grace was so proud of them. They were her children, her own creation and she strived to bring them up to their full potential.
Recently, she had been working on a way to increase the production of plant hormones and volatile organic compounds without damaging or even killing the organism. She had been very careful, as she didn’t want to harm the plants involved in the experiment.
Grace wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to achieve by this, after all, plants couldn’t actually think or feel. They didn’t have neurons, like animals do. There was a lot of pseudoscience about how plants felt pain or emotions, but it was all just an effort to make them easier to understand.
Plants were plants and they weren’t similar to humans. But still, Grace wished for a way to communicate with them and that was only possible with the use of the chemicals the plants produced for the communication with each other.
The hormones of choice ended up to be jasmonates because of the wide variety of processes they were used for. Activities like growth, stress response and even communication with insects all used jasmonates, so it seemed appropriate.
“Come on” Whispered Grace, crouching next to a plant with particularly colorful blossoms. “Do something. Give me a sign that you know I am here.”
But nothing happened. Grace sighed and moved on to the next plant, to repeat the procedure. And to the next. And the next. There were many plants on which she had used her modification, because it wasn’t possible to know from the start which of them would react in a way that would give her a result.
After hours of whispering to plants, the sun had set completely and it was dark in the greenhouse. Only in a few spots, there was a weak green and blue glow from plants that Grace had modified for ideal bioluminescence.
She headed over to those and sat down next to them, watching the soothing glow.
“Why hasn’t it worked?” Asked Grace herself. “I should be able to notice a change of any kind. After all, the concentration of jasmonates in the air here is so high that my instruments try to show numbers that are off the scale. I don’t understand this.”
She laid down on the floor and stared to the roof, which was covered with plants whose roots dangled in the air.
“I love you guys anyway”, said Grace a bit louder. “It is okay if you don’t want to interact with me. I will still take care of you and treat you well. Don’t worry.”
“I doubt that you will see any of these plants ever again”, said a deep voice behind her.
Grace jerked up in a sitting position but a hand pushed her down again and wrapped itself around her throat. The unknown man started strangling Grace. Stars started dancing in front of her eyes and she was gasping for air. She started to panic.
“You are probably wondering who I am”, the man who was now kneeling next to her said. “You ruined my life. You and the other people working for the pharma industry are the reason my wife is dead! You gave her cancer and then you proceeded to give her more chemicals. You said you would treat her cancer, but she died because of this chemotherapy! You killed my wife for profit!”
In this moment, Grace knew she would die. This man was obviously unstable and one of those conspiracy theorists that believed pharmaceutical industries only wanted to make and keep people sick. To earn more money, of course. As if the people working in such companies didn’t have family, kids, friends with cancer or other diseases. As if they all were just heartless monsters.
The thoughts began to blur as black spots appeared in her vision. Grace knew, that she would soon lose consciousness.
Suddenly, the hand around her throat was pulled away and she could breathe again. Coughing, she inhaled deeply, trying not to hyperventilate. Tears streamed down her face, as she was looking around, wondering why the man had let go of her.
But he was nowhere to be seen.
Confused, Grace stood up and had to lean against one of the glass walls for a moment, because she felt like she’d black out. After her condition stabilized, she looked around.
The greenhouse wasn’t as dark as it had been before. The luminescent plants had somehow increased their glow. And they were … bigger? Astonished, Grace examined the other plants. All of them had grown in size and seemed to have moved a bit towards her.
What was this? She looked up.
”Oh my god!”
Entangled in the roots of the plants hanging from the ceiling was the man. It wasn’t possible to see for Grace if he breathed, but she doubted it because several roots had wrapped themselves around his throat.
As it seemed, her experiment had worked in an unexpected way. Her plants were able to communicate with her, but not in the way she had expected.
They had probably sensed the adrenaline her body had produced during the attack and reacted to it, effectively protecting her and killing a person in the process.
Grace smiled.
“You do care”, she said.
You want to read a story about a specific scientific phenomenon? Leave a comment!
Read more about how plants communicate:
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/plants-feel-pain.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405699/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214514116300228
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662512/
Picture taken from pixabay.com