Plants That Can Read Minds
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Cleve Backster was no crackpot, but his story was fantastic -- he claimed to have solid evidence that plants think, feel and read people's minds. Having worked for the American CIA and become recognised as an international authority on polygraph machines, or lie detectors, on 2 February 1966 he sparked a controversy that has never been resolved. On a whim he wired a house plant to a polygraph machine and was astonished to find that the plant recorded emotional responses similar to those of humans. The polygraph showed a positive reaction when the plant was watered, then registered alarm when Backster considered putting a match to the plant. Incredibily, it was the mere thought of burning the plant that caused a violent response. Further experiments showed that plants registered stress when they or other life forms (such as shrimp boiled to death nearby) were under threat. One test appeared to indicate that plants could recognise someone who had recently destroyed a plant in the same room.
Yet Backster was not the first to consider the possibility of plants responsiveness. In the mid-19th century Germain physicist Gustav Fechner argued that plants as well as animals have souls, while Charles Darwin felt that plants must be sentient beings. The early-20th-century Indian scientist Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose believed that plants have a form of nervous system capable of simulation and reaction. American horticulturist Luther Burbank (1849-1926) was convinced that plants could be encouraged to thrive throught genuine love and willpower. Exposing plants to prayer or to music have been said to influence growth.
In 1968 Cleve Backster's work was reported in the International Journal of Parapsychology and later featured in Peter Tompskins's and Christopher Bird's 1973 best-seller, The Secret Life of Plants. Intrigued American botanists conducted their own experiments -- but none could duplicate Backster's results. Since no one questioned his honesty, they concluded that his logic and methodology were misleading. But some skeptics believe that polygraph readings in general are unreliable. Others suggest that plants simply reacts to levels of carbon dioxide exhaled by humans. Yet research into the "Backster effect" has continued. In the former Soviet Union during the 1970s parapsychologists A.P. Dubrov and V.N. Pushkin both said they achieved similar results to Backster's, using encephalographs instead of polygraphs. The concept of plants with personality, it seems, is here to stay
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i believe that it's real woh... like how i've heard stories of the tendrils of plants killing ppl... ewww...
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Ya.... I've heard of POWER PLANTS killing people too...Originally posted by audlenelee:i believe that it's real woh... like how i've heard stories of the tendrils of plants killing ppl... ewww... 
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But i do know that plants can feel pain...read about that before... -
i know plant do eat insects
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-_-"Originally posted by sh|nY_BoY:i know plant do eat insects -
this is related to the Gaia Theory that the earth is a giant living oganism , thinking and breathing and responding to stimuli..Whenver mother earth feels threatened , it releases new viruses catastrophes and environental disasters
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Really?!Originally posted by PaJeRoMiNi Ver 1.0:
But i do know that plants can feel pain...read about that before...
Ouch. Then the flowering plant I have at home must be in excruciating pain every year before Chinese New Year - its annual pruning and plucking-off of all leaves.