Venus flytrap

And the other thing that I think I tend to think about with carnivorous plants like that, I guess just because of the way they look or maybe because people tend to think about tropical pitcher plants being how they refer to them, is that they're not all limited to the tropics.

I think you mentioned Venus flytraps.

I didn't realize until fairly recently that those are actually... like not terribly far from here,

right? Yeah, they're endemic to North Carolina.

Yeah.

Man,

I will recommend if anybody is listening to this, if you want just a really satisfying video to watch that makes you feel good for a plant and maybe not so good for an insect, look up yellow jackets being eaten by Venus flytraps.

Because not a lot of people like yellow jackets

More recent, rigorously published research has moved this conversation from the mystical into the measurable.

A team led by material scientist Xiao Dong at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore developed a wearable electrode capable of both reading and transmitting genuine electrical signals to a Venus flytrap.

published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Electronics in 2021.

Using this device, researchers could trigger the flytrap to close its leaves on command through a smartphone and even attach the plant to a robotic arm using its own natural electrical signaling to pick up a small object.

This is the study of how plants sense, signal, and decide, using much of the same electrical and chemical machinery as the neurons in our brains.

His lab showed that the anesthetics which knock humans out also stop a Venus flytrap from snapping shut, and he argues that mind didn't begin with brains, but with the very first cell.

It's an idea that has pushed my own thinking on how far down cognition really goes.

If you want to explore where mind begins and whether consciousness reaches further into biology than we ever imagined, subscribe to Giant's Shoulder.

fact.

Venus flytraps are native to a very specific area on the East Coast within a 100-mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina.

That's weird.

How is Jeff doing your Venus flytrap?

I have a feeling it is gigantic crabs.

The look of the monster has frequently been compared to that of a subtropical carnivorous plant Venus flytrap.

I totally didn't know.

I just remember the post.

And you know that they were building on some sort of kind of indigenous creature.

We were talking about this last episode as well, almost like the, what is it? Was it called the Nyax or something like that? That was almost like the Venus flytrap.

But again, you know, I just mentioned this in our news story.

I just watched Dune.