TTC Video Plant Science: An Introduction to Botany

TTC Video – Plant Science: An Introduction to Botany
Lecturer: Catherine Kleier, Ph.D.

If you look around right now, chances are you’ll see a plant. It could be a succulent in a pot on your desk, grasses or shrubs just outside your door, or trees in a park across the way. Proximity to plants tends to make us happy, even if we don’t notice, offering unique pleasures and satisfactions. And of course without plants, we wouldn’t even be here: Not only do plants produce oxygen, they also produce their own food-the food that directly or indirectly supports us and all animal life on the planet.
In the 24 lectures of Plant Science: An Introduction to Botany, Dr. Catherine Kleier invites us into the uniquely satisfying world of plants, and the joy of celebrating and learning from the secrets of living nature. As Dr. Kleier shares her tremendous depth of knowledge with contagious excitement for her subject-supported by fascinating graphics and in-studio demonstrations-she emphasizes the “stories” of plants themselves: Without neglecting genetics or cell microbiology, or larger ecosystems and habitats, her primary emphasis is always on how plants we see all around us live and adapt. Dr. Kleier shares with you the pleasures of being able to identify and understand the workings of that tree just outside your window – and of any other plant you may encounter.

See Plants in a New Way. And Another New Way.

Recent scientific research from botany has offered astonishing revelations about the diurnal sleeping and waking cycles of trees. And DNA analysis proves fungi are actually more closely related to humans than to plants. These and many other discoveries illuminate the ways taxonomic identification of plants has changed with the advent of DNA sequencing and other cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, allowing for a greater understanding of the world around us, such as:

How scientists, never able to grow lichen in the lab, finally determined that lichen is neither plant nor animal, but a “sandwich” of three distinct organisms
How plants, no less than beavers building a dam, are “ecosystem engineers” and capable of protecting their territories
Why you rarely see blue plants
Why 600 species of plants eat animals for nutrients, while others are outfitted with poison-injecting hairs
How some plants can grow to enormous size, like grass that can reach to 130 feet tall and leaves measuring more than 80 feet long, or trees that bear 92-pound fruit
The science behind genetically modified organisms and the real issues presented by GMO technology

stone plants with transparent “windows” to let in just the right amount of sunlight
leaves that can photosynthesize underground and others that produce antifreeze
trees that produce a sought-after waterproofing substance (suberin) that chemists have never been able to duplicate in a lab or even fully describe
a plant in which only 5 percent of cells are alive at any given time, which nevertheless creates its own ecosystem and continually modifies its habitat
the oldest living individual tree, which began its life near the end of the Neolithic period, more than 5,000 years ago
a seed in Siberia that remained viable for 31,800 years before germination
a tropical tree (Hura crepitans) that shoots its seeds at speeds up to 150 miles per hour, which also happens to be the maximum speed ever measured in the animal kingdom
mushroom fairy rings and how the associated hyphae work to enrich the soil for further fungal growth
an 11,000-year-old creosote clone in the Mohave Desert
the benefits of sexual vs. asexual reproduction
the roles of wind and water in plant reproduction
plants that are completely dependent on animals for their reproduction-in some cases only one species of animal
the many “tricks” plants use to entice animals into their reproductive process, including those whose flowers look and smell like female insects to lure in males for “mating”
“deceit pollination” and why it works
how plants recognize and address self-pollination
the role hormones play in the reproduction of the squirting cucumber (Ecballium elaterium)

A Passionate Adventure with Plants
Dr. Kleier also introduces fascinating questions botanists are still working to answer. We know plants can sense and respond to their environments, but can they remember their experiences? We know plants communicate to others in their vicinity via chemical signals, but is it also possible some plants have evolved an ability to detect sound waves? We know certain plants respond to touch, but can they be conditioned to “learn” when it is unnecessary to respond? And perhaps the most basic of questions: what exactly is a species? Now that scientists have access to genetic techniques such as DNA fingerprinting, it is relatively easy to find different alleles for different genes. But how many different alleles does it take to identify a new species? It’s an ongoing and exciting debate in the ever-changing world of botany.

Learn to see the world around you afresh as you read the stories of plant life for yourself with a professor who transforms science into an adventure.