New Discoveries of Engineering in Plants
We have a trio of short articles to consider regarding evidence of design in plants from an engineering standpoint. As is so often the case, the more we study how things in nature operate, the more we can see the intricate work and wisdom of our Creator.
It was only a matter of time that the circadian clocks of plants was researched. (See what I did there?) These clocks or rhythms are important to many living things for various reasons. It has been discovered that a messenger molecule sends information top to bottom, shoots to roots. The system is intricate and undoubtedly will receive further study.
Remember that expensive word we learned in school, and somehow many of us remember that it involves plants getting energy from sunlight? Photosynthesis. It's a complicated process, and yet another that is not fully understood. Sunlight is cluttered with all sorts of wavelengths. We can see some colors through a prism or diffraction grating, but the spectrum is actually mighty hugely big. Plant's can't use everything that is coming down to them, so they have to select what they need. How? Using engineering principles involving cell phones and power grids, researchers have gained some knowledge.
Walking in a wooded wonderland, stepping on a communication network for the plant kingdom, wondering if trees and other things are talking about you. Well, not the last part. But tree mail in the wood-wide web is being studied and becomes more fascinating as more research is conducted. Plants send messages to each other — and not just their own kind — with electrical signals using soil fungi, of all things. This is another area of research that reveals the genius of the Master Engineer. To believe in evolution, I reckon someone has to be committed to it despite evidence to the contrary.
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| Credit: StockSnap / Jeswin |
Circadian clocks are internal systems in both plants and animals that sync the organism’s internal processes to the 24-hour day-night solar cycle. Only five years ago, scientists made the startling discovery that the circadian clocks in the above ground part of a plant, called the shoot, functions similarly to clocks in mammal brains. Because different clocks exist in different parts of an animal’s body, it is important that they all be properly synchronized. In mammals, this coordination is accomplished through complex neuronal and endocrine (hormonal) pathways. But how plants accomplished this feat remained a mystery.Although it's asking a lot, you can read all six paragraphs of the article by clicking on "Clock Synchronization in Plants Shows Divine Engineering". Don't leaf entirely yet, we have a couple more quick ones.
Remember that expensive word we learned in school, and somehow many of us remember that it involves plants getting energy from sunlight? Photosynthesis. It's a complicated process, and yet another that is not fully understood. Sunlight is cluttered with all sorts of wavelengths. We can see some colors through a prism or diffraction grating, but the spectrum is actually mighty hugely big. Plant's can't use everything that is coming down to them, so they have to select what they need. How? Using engineering principles involving cell phones and power grids, researchers have gained some knowledge.
One of the primary engineering design challenges for such a system is that light occurs in a broad spectrum of wavelengths and must interact with rapidly fluctuating molecular structures in the plant cell along with highly intricate energy transfer pathways. This produces a delicate interplay of physics-based quantum effects with many complex design hurdles. In other words, sunlight would be considered an exceptionally noisy energy input that must be accurately and precisely filtered or system failure would be inevitable.To read the entire article, head on over to "Design Principles Confer Optimal Light Harvesting in Plants". We have one left to consider.
Walking in a wooded wonderland, stepping on a communication network for the plant kingdom, wondering if trees and other things are talking about you. Well, not the last part. But tree mail in the wood-wide web is being studied and becomes more fascinating as more research is conducted. Plants send messages to each other — and not just their own kind — with electrical signals using soil fungi, of all things. This is another area of research that reveals the genius of the Master Engineer. To believe in evolution, I reckon someone has to be committed to it despite evidence to the contrary.
In this new study, the research involved a joint effort between electrical engineers and plant biochemists. The researchers used physical experiments and mathematical modeling to study the transmission of electrical signals between tomato plants. Much of the success of the study owed itself to one of the scientists who had a specialty in control engineering where specific mathematical algorithms are used in human designed systems such as aerospace vehicle control.You can harvest this entire fascinating article at "Electrical Signaling Among Plants Via Soil Fungal Network".