(Original headline: Italy studies power of green matter )
Florence - The world's first research centre specializing in plant intelligence has started studying the power of green matter here in Florence .
Stefano Mancuso, the university lecturer running the lab, insisted that 'plant intelligence' is no contradiction in terms and said his team will have lots of botanical behaviour to look at .
"We are entering a totally unexplored world," he said .
"This new laboratory will enable us to know more about the mysterious intelligence of plants and many related phenomena .
"It is now clear that plants 'think'. Basically they work to solve the same problem we all have - survival .
"That's why, as they cannot see, they extend their roots as far as possible to find food. "We have also figured out that they sleep, 'raise children', communicate and learn .
"They manage to solve problems increasingly effectively and are even capable of self-consciousness. And, like us, they can defend themselves, threaten and attack." Mancuso said, for example, that the roots of different species of plant fight if they get too close to each other .
What's more, when attacked by germs some species even manage to send signals that attract the assailants' natural enemies to fend them off .
He argued that part of the reason people falsely view plants as unthinking is that they do not take account of the long time spans in which they act .
Plants are actually dynamic, highly sensitive, competitive organisms that carry out sophisticated cost-benefit calculations to adapt rapidly to changing environments, he claimed. The Laboratorio Internazionale di Neurobiologia Vegetale (LINV - International Vegetal Neurobiology Laboratory), is funded by the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze bank and hosted at Florence's Sesto Fiorentino University .
Mancuso will lead a team of six researchers, who will collaborate with experts from top international universities like Cambridge, Harvard and New York (NYU). One of the key areas the lab will study is how plants communicate with each other using chemical, electrical and mechanical signals .
Mancuso said plants use these signals for many things, such as raising the alarm for other members of their species when insects are on the attack. He said the results of the lab's research will be useful for a wide variety of fields, not just agriculture, but refused to make predictions about any potential applications .
