"Plants Use Cell Gaps to Seek Light"
Researchers have discovered that plants, specifically the weed Arabidopsis, use air channels between their cells to scatter light and create a gradient, allowing them to sense the direction of light and grow towards it. This mechanism, based on the phenomenon of refraction, enables plants to "see" with their whole bodies, bypassing the need for discrete organs like eyes. The discovery sheds light on a long-standing mystery in plant biology and could have implications beyond understanding how plants sense light direction.