Ahouxt.197 net.columbia utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!houxi!houxt!govern Fri Apr 2 15:06:39 1982 Re: Shuttle Plants and Security I once read a US Govt reprint (now lost) of a Russian paper called "The Life of an Onion, Not Knowing Down from Up". Conclusion was that plants generally need gravity to know where to send roots and where to send leaves; light wasn't enough, and the plants tended to get confused and die. However, a small electrical field provided enough information for the plant to choose a "down" and an "up", and grow successfully. One technique used in the study was putting the seeds, dirt, light source, etc. in a container which was turned over every 10 seconds or so -- this was the cheapest available substitute for zero-gravity, since the cost of the real thing would have been too high. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.