Greg Gage: Electrical experiments with plants that count and communicate
Greg Gage: Experimente electrice cu plante care calculează și comunică
TED Fellow Greg Gage helps kids investigate the neuroscience in their own backyards. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
the next generation of neuroscientists
viitoarea generație de neurologi,
neuroscience research equipment
de cercetare neurologică
in middle schools and high schools.
din gimnazii și licee.
about the brain, which is very complex,
asupra creierului, care e foarte complex
question about neuroscience,
despre neurologie,
that their cat or dog has a brain,
că pisica sau câinele lor au creier,
or even a small insect has a brain,
sau o mică insectă au creier,
that a plant or a tree
că o plantă, sau un pom
help describe a little bit
living things have brains versus not?"
să aibă creier și ce nu?”
with the classification
tind să aibă creier.
because it is electrical.
fiindcă e electric.
to stimuli in the world
rapid la stimuli în lume
and push back on a student,
you say that plants don't have brains,
"But that's a slow movement.
„Dar aceea e o mișcare lentă.
That could be a chemical process."
Poate fi un proces chimic.”
the Royal Governor of North Carolina,
Guvernatorul Regal al Carolinei de Nord,
când o insectă cădea în ea.
it made its way over to Europe,
a ajuns în Europa,
got to study this plant,
a ajuns să studieze această plantă,
plant in the world.
plantă din întreaga lume.
that was an evolutionary wonder.
o minune evoluționistă.
about this plant.
la această plantă.
is that the plant can count.
e că această plantă poate număra.
out of the way.
niște cuvinte.
in the classroom with students.
pe care-l fac cu elevii în clase.
an experiment on electrophysiology,
asupra electrofiziologiei,
of the body's electrical signal,
semnalelor electrice ale corpului,
or from muscles.
here on my wrists.
pe încheieturile mâinilor.
or the electrocardiogram.
from neurons in my heart
what's called action potentials,
ceea ce se numește potențiali de acțiune
meaning it moves quickly up and down,
însemnând că se mișcă rapid sus-jos,
the signal that you see here.
semnalul pe care-l vedeți aici.
of what we'll be looking at right here,
forma la care ne uităm aici,
encodes information
codifică informația
introduce you to the mimosa,
in Central America and South America,
în America Centrală și America de Sud,
I'm going to show you
pe care vi-l voi arăta
tend to curl up.
au tendința să se ghemuiască.
could be that it scares away insects
că astfel alungă insectele
Now, that's interesting.
the electrical potential from my body,
potențialul electric al corpului,
potential from this plant, this mimosa.
al acestei plante, al acestei mimoze.
is I've got a wire wrapped around the stem,
am înfășurat un cablu în jurul tulpinii,
engineering joke. Alright.
de inginerie electrică. Așadar.
and tap the leaf here,
at the electrical recording
înregistrarea electrică
I've got to scale it down.
trebuie să o micșorez.
that is happening inside the plant.
care are loc în interiorul plantei.
to the end of the stem,
la capătul tulpinii,
we would move our muscles,
ne mișcăm mușchii,
it opens up, releases the water,
se deschide, elimină apa,
and the leaf falls.
encoding information to move. Alright?
ce codifică informația de mișcare. Bine?
the Venus flytrap here,
capcana-de-muște Venus,
at what happens inside the leaf
ce se întâmplă în interiorul frunzei
to be a fly right now.
you're going to notice
and those are trigger hairs.
și acestea sunt fire declanșatoare.
one of the hairs right now.
a beautiful action potential.
Obținem un frumos potențial de acțiune.
about the behavior of the flytrap.
despre comportamentul capcanei-de muște.
a long time to open the traps back up --
să redeschidă capcanele
if there's no fly inside of it.
dacă nu e nicio muscă înăuntru.
that many flies throughout the year.
multe muște pe durata anului.
most of its energy from the sun.
își ia energia de la soare.
some nutrients in the ground with flies.
cu muște, niște nutrienți din pământ.
a handful of times
doar de câteva ori
to make really darn sure
before the flytrap snaps shut.
înainte să închidă capcana de tot.
touching of those hairs.
ale acelor fire.
that there's a high probability,
that it's going to be clicked together,
ca ele să fie atinse simultan,
action potential,
primul potențial de acțiune,
and it doesn't fire again,
și nu se mai declanșează,
then the flytrap will close.
capcana se va închide.
the Venus flytrap again.
for more than 20 seconds.
when I touch the hair a second time.
când ating firul a doua oară.
We get a second action potential,
Un al doilea potențial de acțiune,
the leaf a few times.
actually doing a computation.
face un calcul.
if there's a fly inside the trap,
what the Tigers' score is.
self-actualization problems.
is something that's very similar to us,
to communicate using electricity.
folosind electricitatea.
different ions than we do,
of these action potentials,
a acestor potențialuri de acțiune,
potential in the mimosa.
în mimoză.
an action potential in a human.
am văzut un potențial de acțiune.
information is passed.
is we can use those action potentials
acele potențiale de acțiune
plant-to-plant communicator,
de la plantă la plantă,
is we've created a brand new experiment
the action potential from a Venus flytrap,
de la o capcană-de-muște Venus,
into the sensitive mimosa.
that are sending that information
care trimit aceea informație
of an action potential.
from the Venus flytrap
de la capcana-de-muște Venus
all the stems of the mimosa?
the behavior of the mimosas
and trigger this mimosa right now
of the Venus flytrap.
about touch from one plant to another.
atingerii de la o plantă la alta.
something about plants today,
despre plante,
to help teach neuroscience
în predarea neurologiei
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Greg Gage - NeuroscientistTED Fellow Greg Gage helps kids investigate the neuroscience in their own backyards.
Why you should listen
As half of Backyard Brains, neuroscientist and engineer Greg Gage builds the SpikerBox -- a small rig that helps kids understand the electrical impulses that control the nervous system. He's passionate about helping students understand (viscerally) how our brains and our neurons work, because, as he said onstage at TED2012, we still know very little about how the brain works -- and we need to start inspiring kids early to want to know more.
Before becoming a neuroscientist, Gage worked as an electrical engineer making touchscreens. As he told the Huffington Post: "Scientific equipment in general is pretty expensive, but it's silly because before [getting my PhD in neuroscience] I was an electrical engineer, and you could see that you could make it yourself. So we started as a way to have fun, to show off to our colleagues, but we were also going into classrooms around that time and we thought, wouldn't it be cool if you could bring these gadgets with us so the stuff we were doing in advanced Ph.D. programs in neuroscience, you could also do in fifth grade?" His latest pieces of gear: the Roboroach, a cockroach fitted with an electric backpack that makes it turn on command, and BYB SmartScope, a smartphone-powered microscope.
Greg Gage | Speaker | TED.com