picture supplied by North Atlantic Books
WHEN New Scientist first wrote to ecologist Monica Gagliano asking for an interview, her response was unexpected. She couldn’t commit to anything immediately because she was about to seal herself away in a pitch dark room for 40 days to meditate.
When the interview eventually happened, she revealed more in the same vein. Once, in need of some research inspiration, she visited a shaman deep in the Amazon jungle, she said.
Gagliano’s research itself is unorthodox too. She is known for a string of experiments that she claims show that plants can learn to associate a stimulus with a reward, …