Bonn – Plants are just like astronauts: for the first time, we were able to prove that gravity affects plants’ electrical activity, one of the main ways in which cells communicate with the environment. The research was conducted by the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology of the University of Florence, part of the Department of Production Sciences and Agri-Environment, led by Stefano Mancuso, Associate of General Arboriculture and Tree Crops. The work, carried out in collaboration with INO-CNR and the University of Bonn, was published in Nature Scientific Reports. The experiment took place on board the Parabolic Flights of the European Space Agency (ESA). The hypergravity tests (5 times stronger than Earth’s gravity) were carried out in a maxicentrifugue of the ESA in the Netherlands. (9Colonne)
