Welcome to Fascination of Plants Day on AoB Blog

Today is Fascination of Plants Day. To celebrate we’ll have a few posts out today. At midday we have a review of What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz, a book that shows how fascinating plants can be. At 17:00 there’s news of why the people applying for the Mars One reality programme had better like salad.

First up we go inside a cell to look at Golgi bodies, which move through the cell over the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum. Is there a physical connection? The answer should be easy to find, you just find a Golgi body and tug. But what do you use to tug a Golgi body? Lasers!

We’re celebrating Fascination of Plants Day today on AoB Blog. As the day progresses these links will become live:

• 09:00: Welcome to Fascination of Plants Day
  That’s this entry. Hello!
• 13:00: What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz
  A review of the book that reveals how a plant senses its environment. It reveals how a plant can ‘see’ by sensing light, or how it can ‘talk’ to other plants. But is it fascinating?
• 17:00: Will Martian cuisine have a terrifying secret?
  The colonists for Mars One will venture into a hostile environment farther from their families than any human has gone before. It’s a difficult life, but one that might be harder still when they see what’s for lunch.
• 21:00: 10 Plants used to spice up sex
  Spice is a bit of a give-away that some plants have been used as aphrodisiacs but you might be surprised at what common plants have been used to ignite desire.