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Not having to endure costs radically changes behavior, in humans and in plants.Photograph by Thomas Hawk / Flickr

Plants have their own form of money: carbon dioxide. For decades, our fossil fuel industry has been artificially inflating their currency. What happens to plants during inflation—when CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise?

The same thing that happens if you drop money from the sky over Times Square, leaving everyone there with $1,000 in their pockets, says Hope Jahren, a geochemist and geobiologist at the University of Oslo, and author of Lab Girl, a personal memoir of her life in science.* “Some people would save it; some people would run out and buy clothes; some people would gamble it away within 5 minutes,” she told Nautilus editor in chief Michael Segal. Plants face similar choices. “Some build a bunch of new leaves; some make a bunch more flowers; some shunt it into their roots; some stop making defense compounds. I call that the Costco effect. If you go buy 100 rolls of toilet paper, you’re going to use toilet paper at your house very differently than if you’re buying it roll by roll. So plants, if it’s that easy to make a…
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We are entering a golden age where we constantly surveil each other but are scared to wave from across a fence.

Today's News:

Hands up anyone who's been in exactly this situation with a schoolteacher and a group of students.

Although most teachers were never as patient as Head Death can be.

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2018-06-19 Rerun commentary: Well, you know what inevitably comes next. Yep, I checked ahead and you won't be disappointed. (Now let's see how many of you can resist the urge to click the "Next in theme" button. You're clearly not as patient as the Head Death.)

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