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Listen to this story via streaming audio, a downloadable file, or get help. May 15, 2002:
When gardeners poke a seed into the ground, they never
worry in which direction it lays. Give it enough water and
food and care, and sure enough, its root will grow downward and
its stem will sprout upward -- every time! Lay the seed upside-down,
and the root and stem would still find their proper positions. Everyone knows that plants grow toward light, but there must be more to it than that. Trees in northern forests, for example, grow straight up even though the Sun is never directly overhead, and the first stem emerging from a buried seed grows upward through dark soil.
No one knows the answers. But scientists do know enough to suggest two possibilities. First, when the fluid contents of plant cells (called the "protoplasm") are pulled downward by gravity, the pressure exerted on the cell walls might serve as a signal that helps plants distinguish up from down. Second, plant cells contain starch grains which, like protoplasm, drift down when gravity is present. Scientists suspect this might act as a cue to plants, too. But which is it? A novel experiment slated to fly aboard the space shuttle in July 2002 (STS-107) might reveal the answer. Right: Seen under a microscope, the starch grains in these plants cells are visible as small dots. Image courtesy NASA. Karl Hasenstein, principal investigator for the BioTube/Magnetic
Field Apparatus experiment, explains: The shuttle will carry
a payload of flax seeds to orbit. Once there, a computer-controlled
dose of water will start them growing. Unlike flax sprouts growing
on Earth, these won't feel the usual pull of gravity. The protoplasm
and the starch grains within their cells will float rather than
sink. Starch grains are not magnetic in the usual sense -- if you
held one against your refrigerator it wouldn't stick. But the
grains are "diamagnetic," which means they develop
a weak magnetic field when other magnets are nearby. The diamagnet's
field will naturally oppose that of the nearby magnet -- hence
the prefix "dia" -- so the starch grains will be repelled.
Although the effect is weak, this diamagnetic response allows
researchers to use magnets to move the starch grains. Above: This plant originally sprouted with the pot upright and was later turned on its side. The new stem growth curved to re-align with gravity. Image courtesy University of Wisconsin-Madison. Infrared cameras will automatically photograph the germinating roots. Regular cameras can't be used because the chamber will be kept completely dark. The darkness allows scientists to know that the seeds are responding to the magnetic fields, not just growing toward a light source. Don't bother trying this experiment at home with ordinary
refrigerator magnets. Only special "high-gradient"
magnetic fields will do. Hasenstein's experiment uses magnets
about 50 times more powerful than a typical refrigerator magnet.
The magnets have ferromagnetic wedges attached to them, which
focus a strong magnetic field into a small area. Around that
area, the strength of the field tapers off quickly, creating
the "gradient" of field strength that moves the starch
grains. The lessons learned won't only apply to flax seeds (which
were chosen for their small size and their quick, reliable germination).
All normal plants have these starch grains, so the results of
this experiment will add to our basic understanding of plants
in general. |
Credits & Contacts Authors: Patrick L. Barry, Dr. Tony Phillips Responsible NASA official: John M. Horack |
Production Editor: Dr.
Tony Phillips Curator: Bryan Walls Media Relations: Steve Roy |
The Science and Technology Directorate at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center sponsors the Science@NASA web sites. The mission of Science@NASA is to help the public understand how exciting NASA research is and to help NASA scientists fulfill their outreach responsibilities. |
Web Links |
NASA's Office of Biological and Physical Research -- supports fundamental biology experiments like this one. Gravitropism -- discusses plants' ability to align themselves with Earth's gravitational field High-gradient magnetic fields -- describes the sort of magnetic fields used in Hasenstein's experiment. (A technical description is also available.) Shuttle flight STS-107 -- information about the shuttle mission that will carry the experiment discussed in this article. Right: Related experiments conducted on the ground used a slowly rotating device called a "clinostat," shown here, to approximate weightlessness. Gravity pulls on the sprouting seeds from every angle as the device rotates, so the net effect is nearly zero. These earlier experiments were informative, but scientists can't be sure of their conclusions without running the experiment in the true weightlessness of Earth orbit. NASA plant physiology research -- information about efforts to learn how to grow food crops in space Gravitational Biology -- home page for the program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Leafy Green Astronauts -- Science@NASA article: NASA scientists are learning how to grow plants in space. Such far-outs will eventually take their place alongside people, microbes and machines in self-contained habitats for astronauts. Teaming up on Space Plants -- Science@NASA article: students, scientists, and astronauts join forces to learn more about how plants grow in space. Classroom exercise -- laboratory exercise to teach children about plants' responses to gravity (from the American Society of Plant Biologists) Classroom exercise -- demonstration of gravitropism suitable for elementary school students |
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