Plants as network medium?
Michael J. Fair
michael at technocage.com
Fri Aug 28 14:27:37 EST 1998
Hello all, at the risk of being flamed for crazy ideas I decided to ask
the following question.
Would it be possible to use plants as the transmission medium for
The question stemmed from the assumption that the Earth already has a
built in global communications network and all we need to do is start
I know plants are emitting a signal, so in a sense they are "talking."
What they are saying is entirely up for interpretation but the important
point is they are sending out some sort of signal. This signal operates
at appx. 4Hz from what I understand, which when asking some friends
about it has a wavelength that could probably reach around the globe.
(Piece number 1)
Plants like to be talked to and have music played for them. Scientists
have proven that this increases their rate of graowth. This implies
that they can receive messages and will respond to them. ( Piece number
So it seems to me the gap I need to close is in being able to send a
message to a plant and hopefully have it "echo" the message. I
unfortunately have no background in the electronics to make such a
device to start experimenting with it. I would assume it would be very
similar to radio technology but like I said, I don't know for sure.
I am not concerned about bandwidth right now, I just want to get a
message to "bounce" off the plant. Heck, it doesn't even have to be a
meaningful message, just a simple "echo" of whatever I sent.
My initial assumptions are that each plant (or plant species) has its
own resonant frequency, and that whatever signal I sent at that
frequency the plant would duplicate and copy for me.
I know someone out there can answer this question, I chose the linux and
bionet groups because I figured they would have the highest likelihood
of succeeding at answering this, and if it worked,
the linux guys could probably create a device driver for it. The long
term vision of this idea is that
we won't have to pay a phone bill for slow internet access anymore!
Please respond to the newsgroups as I will not have access to my email
over the next couple weeks.
Thanks for any and all responses. I know it might sound funny but if
this does turn out to
be anything useful I would be very thankful. I have a game going with
about 63 other ppl that
says I can get one of these devices in my hands by November 21, 1998.
So as Sherlock Holmes loved to put it:
The game is afoot!
Thanks in advance,
-- Michael --
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