WHEN New Scientist first wrote to ecologist Monica Gagliano asking for an interview, her response was unexpected. She couldn鈥檛 commit to anything immediately because she was about to seal herself away in a pitch dark room for 40 days to meditate.
When the interview eventually happened, she revealed more in the same vein. Once, in need of some research inspiration, she visited a shaman deep in the Amazon jungle, she said.
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Gagliano鈥檚 research itself is unorthodox too. She is known for a string of experiments that she claims show that plants can learn to associate a stimulus with a reward, just as Pavlov鈥檚 dogs did. Plant biologists may not like her use of the word 鈥渓earn鈥� one bit. But Gagliano is sticking to it, and plans experiments that might reveal the equivalent of a plant鈥檚 brain (see 鈥�Smarty plants: They can learn, adapt and remember without brains鈥�). She is out to do no less than transform how we see one of the kingdoms of life.
For our part, we applaud Gagliano. She is doing the right thing by testing her ideas and publishing the experiments. Some might call the ideas out there. But what great scientific breakthrough wasn鈥檛 viewed like that to begin with?
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淟et radical ideas bloom鈥�
