Latest news with #Ents
Newsweek
06-05-2025
- Science
- Newsweek
Scientists Discover Trees Communicate Like Tolkien's Ents During Eclipse: 'Wisdom of Age'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Trees can communicate with one another during an eclipse, and older trees appear to be able to provide younger trees with important information, a new study found. An international study revealed that trees, particularly older ones, display a coordinated, anticipatory response to solar eclipses—signaling to each other with bioelectrical pulses in a manner likened to J.R.R. Tolkien's sentient Ents from his classic The Lord of the Rings series. 'A new layer of complexity' Researchers monitored multiple spruce trees in the Dolomites region of Italy during the October 2022 solar eclipse using ruggedized, low-power CyberTree devices. The sensors captured real-time data, gathering the full suite of a tree's bioelectrical signals. What they observed was startling: trees not only reacted to the eclipse, but began adjusting their internal electrical activity hours before the celestial event. Stock image: A forest of trees. Stock image: A forest of trees. Photo by Mr_Twister / Getty Images "This study illustrates the anticipatory and synchronized responses we observed are key to understanding how forests communicate and adapt, revealing a new layer of complexity in plant behavior," study author Monica Gagliano from Southern Cross University, Australia said in a press release. "Basically, we are watching the famous 'wood wide web' in action!" Older Trees Remember Older trees showed the strongest early responses. The ancient trees exhibited shifts in entropy and complexity—markers of active internal processes—well before the Moon's shadow crossed their canopy. The phenomenon was described by scientists as a kind of "forest-wide synchrony," where trees operated not as isolated organisms, but as a coordinated community. The anticipatory behavior wasn't triggered by changes in light or temperature—variables that remained largely unchanged until the eclipse. Instead, the researchers suggest trees may use gravitational cues linked to the Sun-Moon-Earth alignment to "sense" the eclipse in advance. "Our study bridges the gap between quantum physics and ecology, proposing that forests can be viewed through the lens of quantum field interactions," study author Alessandro Chiolerio told Newsweek in an email. "We highlight the subtle and profound ways in which living systems are interconnected, not just biologically, but also physically and energetically." 'Huge step forward' The study's theoretical framework, grounded in quantum field theory, supports the idea of entanglement among trees—suggesting that bioelectrical signals are phase-synchronized across individuals without requiring physical exchanges through air or soil. During the eclipse, these synchronized electrical rhythms intensified and later settled into a new, more ordered pattern. The researchers said that the findings show how important it is to make sure that older forests continue to thrive. Chiolerio told Newsweek that he is leading a research proposal that will be submitted to the European Innovation Council. "Details cannot be made public, but it will be a huge step forward, if funded," he said.
The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Branching out or nipped in the bud? Could Groot be getting a solo Marvel movie?
There comes a time in every veteran actor's career when they ask themselves: have I spent too long playing a large, talking tree? But for Vin Diesel, that moment is clearly yet to arrive. More than a decade after he first portrayed Groot in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy, the action star is still giddy with excitement about the prospect of stepping into the studio once again and uttering the three simple, anodyne words with which his character has become synonymous, over and over again. In an Instagram post this week, Diesel revealed that Marvel is considering some kind of Groot movie – or at least, we think that's what he was saying. 'Disney wants their Planet X! Which some say is Marvel's most anticipated movie, haha,' wrote Diesel. 'The film where Groot returns to his home planet.' For those of you not familiar with the comics, Diesel is referring to the homeworld of Groot and his species, the Flora Colossi. Imagine if the Ents from The Lord of the Rings had taken over all of Middle-earth, invented spectacular technologies, delivered the most sustainable urban planning in the galaxy, and yet somehow regressed to sentences of no more than three words. That is an awful lot like what Planet X looks like. According to the comics, though, the Flora Colossi are not really speaking three words of English; that's just what it sounds like to anyone who can't understand the subtle inflections in tone and the deeply complex linguistic structures that, when heard by an educated listener, might mean the giant talking tree in question is in fact discussing the finer points of quantum physics, or reciting the Instructions of Shuruppak. This is an excellent joke which has sustained Groot through six movies, a Disney+ series, and a Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special. But the time has come to ponder whether even such a magnificently absurd gag can be the sturdy trunk around which an entire movie could be set in Marvel's increasingly desperate content machine. Are we really likely to sit through two hours of a Dune-like political epic in which various factions of Flora Colossi battle for control of the planet's most valuable resource – premium mulch? – while audiences try to understand who is betraying whom through the nuance of bark texture alone? Perhaps the film could manifest as a tense arboreal hostage thriller in which negotiators are forced to interpret the shifting vocal timbre of 'I am Groot' to determine whether our hero is bluffing, breaking down, or just politely asking for more sunlight. There are endless permutations, but how far is Marvel really going to take this thing before we all collapse from exhaustion? The reality is that Diesel is probably exaggerating: the studio has a long history of borrowing iconic comic book storylines, stripping them for parts, then bolting those bits on to entirely different cinematic vehicles. There were once rumours of a full-blown Planet Hulk movie, for example, but instead we got Thor: Ragnarok, a film that borrowed all the best bits of the classic Marvel graphic novel – gladiatorial mayhem, a crumbling Sakaar, and the Hulk's tragic exile – but managed to turn the not-so-jolly green giant into a goofy sidekick to the son of Odin. This is how Marvel tends to flow – not that this is always a bad thing. Comic books and movies are very different creatures, and sometimes a 12-issue existential crisis about the nature of artificial intelligence works better as a two-hour CGI punch-up with jokes about lifting Thor's hammer. But it does raise the question of quite how the studio plans to transform the tale of a planet of talking trees into something audiences can munch popcorn and cheer to. There's a reason a lot of the comic books only mentioned Planet X as a sort of distant, semi-mythic place of ancient wisdom and ecological mysticism instead of spending entire issues there, just as Star Wars wisely keeps its deep-force meditation planets as brief detours while everyone gets back to the important business of laser sword fights and defeating space fascism. Then again, perhaps there's a chance here for Marvel to really break out of the box and prove naysayers wrong when they suggest these films are little more than glorified theme park rides with the emotional depth of a water slide. It's just possible to imagine someone such as Alejandro Jodorowsky delivering a mind-melting fever dream of cosmic existentialism, bark-covered bureaucracy and interstellar horticulture, or Werner Herzog giving us a film that follows Groot on a doomed and wretched quest to find the Primordial Sap, deep in the heart of an uncharted alien jungle. Not that this is going to happen. My money is on Planet X appearing only briefly, perhaps in a brief opening scene or flashback during Avengers: Doomsday in which we see Planet X consumed by Galactus, a tragedy the heroes react to with solemn nods, before immediately moving on to a more important subplot about the Fantastic Four arriving in the MCU, only for Reed Richards to spend the entire runtime explaining the multiverse with increasingly large, retro 1960s whiteboards.
