Bugger the Bankers

Lyrics of Bugger the Bankers

When I was a lass I was proud of me class

Like my father and mother before me

They taught me to fight for my civil rights

But it’s always the same old story.

The rich reign supreme while the poor only dream

And they don’t give a damn, Tory, Lib’ral or Labour.

Chorus

Bugger the bankers and politicians

Bugger the bureaucrats too

Bugger the buggers who make up the rules

And if you’re one of them – bugger you!

The system is bad and the money’s all spent

We’re buggered from every direction

The workers are taxed, the wealthy relax

With nary a moment for reflection

Chorus

Now all you good people with passion to vent

Don’t give up your struggle for justice

I’ve done my time in the protesters’ line

And these days I show my dissent

By loitering within my tent, my tent.

Conspiracies in Science

Conspiracies in Science
In mid nineteen sixties in USA there was a lady scientist who postulated that mitochondria probably originated from bacteria and took a symbiotic existence in evolution in eukaryotic cells. 

She would have had some good reasons which was deliberately not recorded in scientific history.
She was ridiculed by her male colleagues and she committed suicide.
 
Mind you mitochondrial DNA was not known then.
 
They reproduce by binary fission.
Mitochondrial DNA is always inherited by the mother and the few mitochondria of paternal origin (from the sperm) have no significant role.

Quite unknown to the above incident few years later I had the same premonition that mitochondria are almost similar to bacteria in size and  structure.
My sense was sharp enough never to say this in medical school to my colleagues or to my teachers.
But I dig in and found there are giant mitochondria in  glandular adenomas.
I let it rest at that level till I started teaching pathology many years later.
 
I was very happy now that concept is accepted but very unhappy a young life was lost by being forthcoming in science.

This is one example in conspiracies in science.
 
There are many of course.
By way of suppressing information or manufacturing bogus facts.
 
There is another conspiracy in America where Federal Governments operate.
In some federal states they do not allow the teaching of Evolutionary Concept in Biology.

That is a conspiracy by the evangelical politicians!

Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory comes in conflict with god’s creation.

So do not teach it to American Students is the Evangelical message.In evolutionary studies mitochondrial DNA is very important. They can record changes that occurred million years apart.

There is something called Mitchondrial Genetics that helps in answering evolutionary puzzles.
There is a protein in evolutionary history called heat shock protein.
The heat shock protein of bacteria has remarkable resemblance to heat shock protein in us.
Not only mitochondrial DNA but proteins of prokaryotic cells have links with eukaryotic cells.

Genomic projects is currently unraveling the evolutionary secrets one by one.
So it time for us to forget about the god's creation.

Big Bang Conspiracy

Big Bang Conspiracy

Big Bang was a big conspiracy to satisfy the church 100 years ago.

The church was very powerful and was dictatorial in its past.

Its first conspiracy was killing Socrates.

From then there were many more occurrences.

However, the most recent one was the hanging of the Vatican Banker under the London Bridge.

I was in London when that happened but police removed the body before I could have a look with a forensic intent. 

But police never investigated it in full or published the details for public consumption.

Mafia had connection with Vatican and the death of one of the Popes soon after coming to office was not a mystery.

If one wants the details please read the “God Father Series" or see the films.

I have all the books and the films with me and I recommend the book "Mafia Republic".

Before coming back to Big Bang conspiracy, let me summarize the current scientific knowledge, thanks to the Hubble Telescope (named after the greatest scientist who predicted the expansion of the universe).

Dark matter is roughly 23%.

Dark force 73%.

The matter we can see is only 5% (probably the god saw this matter 7250 odd years ago-according to the Bible the life of this planet is little over 7000 years-and the Bible was written 2300 odd years ago).

Even in this 5% of matter, the byrons are not accounted for and are probably mingled among the gas clouds in the universe.

I have my own hypothesis and there are two books at Amazon if one is interested.

My hypothesis (not proven) is that the matter tends to settle to (transformation) a low energy level of dark matter and immense amount of dark force.

If one push this theory far, all matter will disappear with time.

Byrons may be a manifestation.

But my counter theory proposes that dark matter and dark force turns back to matter right in the middle of the galaxies forming stars.

Why I am stating these hypotheses is/are for one to look at fresh at the current theory including Big Bang.

We have not fully understood the mechanics and new physics (current physics, only applies to matter real) is necessary for virtual matter (dark Matter).

Big Bang was proposed to satisfy the Church.

It is not the final theory.

There are two big holes in Big Bang theory.

I have explained them elsewhere.

The original matter comes from nothing.

Something cannot come from nothing and this supposition pleased the church 100 years ago.

Then the time zero (time is a concept) was brought to fit in with the "something from nothing" and Big Bang was born and the god had an upper hand 100 years ago.

Not any more.

Both Albert Einstein and Fred Hoyle were under tremendous pressure from the church to suppress free thinking and inquiry.

That is why I say the church had been always dictatorial and helped dictatorial regimes in the past.

True scientist had no place and few were beheaded at the behest of the church.
 
When a new concept came in and if it did not fit in with the god creation, the church was at loggerhead with the emerging science.

If you read the Bible, god creation was added few centuries after its original scripture.

So with new science coming into prominence the Bible has to be rewritten just like the Kuran does for many centuries.

There are two or three things Christianity has monopoly.
1. Even Mafiosi boss can be excused by Redemption.
The god takes the crimes to his hand.

 Penance is repentance of sins and Confession / Reconciliation.

I believe one has to own his or her good or bad deeds in this world.
Prison is notorious option for criminals but there is no virtual heaven for good guys like us,just to see how it feels like to be in heaven.

Only option in this world is some wine.

Religious parole is not in my book.

2. There are miracles

3. Eternal hell (where is penance?) or heaven are undemocratic institutions.
One cannot go from one to the other (mutually antagonistic)

My Night Terror

Memories
 
It was many moons ago
I was just a kid
Barely seven years old
The war broke in

Yes, we were moved
From here to there
There were not a place
To hide
Except the trenches

I had four sisters
Two were taken for cadres
And rest were sent to
A far away place
Over and beyond the sea
I never saw them again

I was smuggled out
And grew up
In a Foreign Land

I grew up fast,
Very successful in
My academy
Met lot of
Guys and gals

One day,
I met a beautiful
Blue eyed girl
They used to say
Irish blue eyes

We fell in love
It was natural
Whenever I tried to
Kiss her
In her blue eyes,
Yes I saw
My Sisters eyes
In red, green
And dark shades

I could not
Bear it
We broke up
As friends
Promising never to
Kiss again!

Many moons passed
I met a gal
Much older
We were in bed
In no time

But the moment
We were under the blanket
I had a night terrors
"Crawling in,
The dark trenches
Bombs falling
Near by"
It was horrible

She had gone
Secretly,
In the morning
Leaving a note
Please take treatment
For night terrors

Very morning,
I booked
A ticket home
To see my
Aging mother

Yes,
I was dreaming
I had never seen a bomb
Or a trench in my life
Why I am dreaming
Like this?

If my night terror
Was not bad enough,
How could it had been
The days and nights
For the guys and gals
Of the Yesteryear War?
Living without a roof,
I wonder

Why I hate the phrase “Lotus eaters”?

Why I hate the phrase “Lotus eaters”?
 
I hate the phrase or metaphor lotus eaters.

There is no inherent reason except, I love all types FLOWERS of water lilies.

Are we lotus eaters?
 
In Greek mythology the Lotus-eaters, also referred to as the lotophagi or lotophaguses (singular lotophagus ) or lotophages (singular lotophage), were a race of people living on an island dominated by lotus plants. The lotus fruits and flowers were the primary food of the island and were narcotic, causing the people to sleep in peaceful apathy.

1. Lotus-eater or Lotus Eater Greek Mythology One of a people described in the Odyssey who lived in a drugged, indolent state from feeding on the lotus.

2. A lazy person devoted to pleasure and luxury.

If we take the above definitions this island fits nicely, especially after ex-president’s period.
 
The narcotic sales hit a zenith.
 
People were elated (especially with racial dogma) but lazy.
 
Expansion of temples all over the country needed large amount of water lilies for worshiping. 

Then of course, the people eat most of the  parts of the plant including the rhizome.
 
My gut feeling is these rhizomes concentrate arsenic and heavy metals which can be poisonous after about 30 to 40 years of eating.

Increase detection (I won’t use an epidemic) of chronic renal disease is relevant here.
 
Other relevant point is from C. P De Silva’s (1960s) time we had been importing and using poisonous pesticides and artificial fertilizer loaded with heavy metals.
The coal that we import from China will also be contributory where Coal Power Plants are located.
 

The name lilies is a broad term and many lilies can be poisonous to cats and dogs.

Below is a Reproduction
Quick warning:
No matter the circumstance, NEVER eat any plant unless you're absolutely sure that it's safe. This means either a) having bought it from a grocery store, or b) having it identified with all possible certainty (both as a particular species and as edible) by a reliable authority.
Don't just take my word for it!


That said... The word "lily" covers an astonishingly wide variety of plants, most of which are indeed poisonous.
I'll go over them a few at a time, by botanical categories.
True lilies (genus Lilium -- Easter lilies, stargazer lilies, etc.) are definitely toxic to cats.
My sources are more dubious regarding humans: they are at very least dubious. Numerous species are outright poisonous (if only mildly), while many others are inedible and bitter.
Do not eat.

Daylilies (genus Hemerocallis) are not at all poisonous -- in fact, they're lauded as tasty in numerous books of edible wild plants.
Apparently all parts of the plant are edible, and many are pretty good eating.

One plant sometimes referred to as "Easter lily" is also called the calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica): it is toxic.
All parts of the plant contain calcium oxalate, which causes swelling, burning, and highly unpleasant digestive symptoms.
Do not eat.
 
Lily of the valley (Convallaria majus) is highly toxic -- it's full of cardiac glycosides, to the point that merely handling it and then licking one's fingers could cause some symptoms.
Do NOT eat.

Water lilies (Nymphaeaceae spp.) are too large a group for me to say anything definite.
They seem mostly innocuous, but it'd be advisable to research any given species individually before trying to eat or plant it.

Sonia Barnett was delighted to receive a beautiful bouquet on Valentine’s Day.
But her joy turned to horror when the flowers poisoned and killed three of her beloved cats.
Miss Barnett did not know that ingesting any part of a lily can be fatal to felines, with even a small amount of pollen enough to kill them.

Myths and Conspiracies in Human History

Myths and Conspiracies in Human History
 
Myths I can excuse but conspiracies I cannot.
 
It looks like the entire history of mankind is either filled with myth or conspiracies.
No matter, whether it is philosophy, religion, war, power politics or democracy, there is subtle hint that for success or failure,  conspiracy had a bigger role to play.
 
It turned events in history for better or worse.
 
But when there is a conspiracy in science and medicine, it is outrageous and deplorable.
 
I have seen that happening in my entire adult career.
 
The story is the cholesterol and the saga is coconut oil or saturated oil.
 
They promoted polyunsaturated oil and peanut oil as a remedy.
It was a comedy.
Highly reactive bonds with reactive chemicals were introduced.
From heart attacks to degenerative disease to cancer to dementia ensued.

Who benefited.
 
Drug companies and doctors.
 
American Heart Association was instrumental in the grand conspiracy.

Why I am writing this? 

In another 100 years, when our descendants analyze the history, they will look at as jokers in history. 

This piece for redemption only.

Nihalsingha is No More

But he has left landmarks and milestones in our cinematic history.














One of Sri Lanka’s foremost filmmakers, D. B. Nihalsingha passed away yesterday afternoon after a brief illness. He was 77. Nihalsingha was the only Sri Lankan to be honoured with the title, ‘Professor in Cinema and Television’

Having made several award winning movies including Welikathara, Maldeniye Simion, Ridee Nimnaya and Kelimadala Nihalsingha made the country’s first tele serial ‘Dimuthu Muthu’ and followed it up with ‘Rekha.’ The cinema veteran was the founding CEO and General Manager of the National Film Corporation from 1972 to 1978.

Nihalsingha’s parents were veteran journalist D.B. Dhanapala and the late Rathi Dhanapala. 
His brother was veteran photo-journalist D.B. Suranimala.

 

Why Worship with Flower?

Why Worship with Flower?

In evolution, plants with flowers were recent.

They had a reason for existence.

Propagation of the species with added tolerance to extinction under adverse conditions was the purpose.

Flowers tend to bloom seasonally when there is scarcity of water.

Fruits are formed to take the next generation of seeds.

Nuts are often bitter, so that animals do not eat them.

If they eat them they are not digested in the digestive system.

They make the flesh of the fruits attractive so that they eat and spread the seeds far away from their origin.

Fact that they are edible should not be taken as a license to store them in cold storage.

If one destroys a flower he/she in fact upset the balance of nature.

Buddhist offer the flowers at the shrines of Buddha, to remind themselves of the unsatisfactory and transient nature of life.

They recite a Gatha as they do that.

Actually plucking of water lillie flowers, make the plant to go into hibernation and often end up with death of the mother plant.

That is my discovery.

My bone of contention is even if they are not producing fruits, say jasmine they attract a plethora of insects who live on the pollens and nectar.

Not only we destroy the flowers we destroy the insect life, too.

Buddhist who say “Let all living beings be happy and content” are violating one principle while acquiring merits on Anitta Meditation while offering flowers at the temple.

One can argue that merits acquired with offering flowers are devalued by demerits of interfering with insect life.

Why not remind oneself of Annita every time one sees a flower.

Why one has to pluck them?

Attachment to the flower is as bad, in Buddhist way of thinking.

Why pick fresh flowers?

One can easily choose the fallen flowers, instead.

Which show their demise glaringly and epitomize the principle of Anitta, much better.

There is a paradox here.

If one sees a beautiful flower and set in motion Anitta principle, instead of enjoying the very nature of natural beauty, to me it is sadistic.

 

Let them blossom in the place they have chosen for themselves.

Enjoy the beauty.

Don't be a sadist or a lovebird, unless you have cared them yourself.

If you cared for them, it is hard to pick them or destroy them, even if they are in the plenty.

Adore them but do not treat them like plastic toys.

They are living creatures and there is a purpose of their existence.

I do not mind a little girl wearing them on their hair to enhance their natural beauty.

But teach them the nature's secrets while fixing one or two flowers on the head or hair band in the hairdo.

Tell them a plastic flower lasts long.

Do not tell them the Anitta Concept too early and make them sadistic in formative years.

This is where I come in conflict with Buddhist notions.

Why only animals are sacred.

Evolutionary-wise plants are more sacred, since they support all life including animals.

This is why I say Buddhism does not teach science, especially biological science in its core themes.

This might upset some mafiosi Buddhists but it is not as bad as Victor Ivan stating kill all the cows when they are at the end of the milking cycle, old and feeble, for beef.

Take him to task if a Buddhist gets agitated by my above comments.

It is far better extend some Metta to Me and My Flowers.

That will make you feel better.

It feels much better if you have few flowers in your garden.

This April I had five exotic flowers.

It put my April joy at a high level, all together.

The NASA Clean Air Study

 Reproduction

The NASA Clean Air Study
 
The NASA Clean Air Study has been led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in association with the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA). Its results suggest that certain common indoor plants may provide a natural way of removing toxic agents such as benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene from the air, helping neutralize the effects of sick building syndrome.

The first list of air-filtering plants was compiled by NASA as part of a clean air study published in 1989, which researched ways to clean air in space stations. 

As well as absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, as all plants do, these plants also eliminate significant amounts of benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene.

NASA researchers suggest efficient air cleaning is accomplished with at least one plant per 100 square feet of home or office space. 

Other research has shown that micro-organisms in the potting mix (soil) of a potted plant remove benzene from the air, and that some plant species also contribute to removing benzene.

New Year One Liners

Only a Sri-Lankan would enjoy these one liners.
You may add, delete or modify!
No copyright attached
 
1. No Hair on Konda Kavum

2. No (coconut) Coir in Pol Pani
 
3. Dead ants (on full tommy) on  Kithul Treacle
 
4. Tooth stuck on a Krispy  Kokis
 
5. New Rupee coin stuck in a Mung Kavum
 
6. Politician fallen sleep in a Kotta Pora
 
7. Prime Minister Oiling a Grease Tree

8. President singing Nelum Kavi dressed in loin cloth
 
9. Astrologer stolen Maru (or Sankramana) Grahaya
 
10. Pickpocket picking an empty pocket in Nona Gathaya

Blind Fish

Blind Fish
I volunteered to look after a batch of blind and partially blind fish.
After nearly 20 months only three are left.
One has total visually capacity now.
One is blind in one eye.

The other is totally blind.
It amazes me how it survived.
 
It more amazing how it detects me.
 
The moment I sit next to the tank it comes near to the side my chair is kept.

The blind fish knows I am there.
 
I do not touch anything.
Probably it detects my foot steps and pulling the chair (gently).
I do not feed that tank (to confuse the blind fish in a way) first as a routine but feed the fish in the main big tank.
 
Moment I start putting the pellets that sink to the bottom, the two clown fish make a mess of the bottom sediment, and then the blind fish hits at the bottom or the floor in a random fashion and finds its food.
That's how it survived.
I believe the other fish, especially the clown fish (scavenger) gives a subsonic message to the blind fish.
They are all in one community.

Firearm Free Society

Firearm Free Society

It is appropriate to revisit the JVP and LTTE.

Not of their achievements but impact they had made in gun industry.

Before JVP almost all the landowners had a registered gun or rifle.

Government withdrew all the licenses as a result.

But LTTE with the help of RAW took up arms.

After a big battle they were unarmed.

Imagine if we did not have both those in our history.

We would be like America.

Police officers getting killed while on duty.

Come April we would have firearm incidents unprecedented in this part of the world.

Only defense officers can carry firearms.

In spite of this we have local mafia carrying illegal fire arms.

We must search and destroy all firearms not belonging to the defense forces.

Recent incident in the North is and eyeopener.

They say history repeats.

That is if we are not vigilant.

Debian Update

Debian 8.4.0
Debian 8.4.0 is out with various flavors on both 32 and 64 bits.

Knoppix 7.7-Magazine Edition

Knoppix 7.7-Magazine Edition

Knoppix Linux 7.7 is fabulous.
It comes in 32 bits and 64 bits.
I had few problems of booting (my fault) it but once running, it was very smooth.
Immediately prepared a Flash Disk with over lay.
You need at least 8 GIB Flash Disk.
I listened to a rare interview with Linus Torvalds yesterday.

He is a genius but very reserved, whereas, Klaus Knopper is both affable as well as genius.

In the May Edition of the Linux Magazine Ask Klaus was missing.
I missed it but he deserves a holiday.
Remember Klaus is the one who introduced the Live CD/DVD and popularized Linux.
I started my Linux with Knoppix.
It is a great DVD.

Comets and Planet Nine

Comets and Planet Nine

Beginning around 250 to 500 Million years
In this context, evolution of the frogs/toads is very important.
 
They have gone through all the comet impacts but survived for 300 million years.

Assuming comet impacts were local in nature and the toads did survive in not affected areas, is a simple logic.

But there few unexplained facts.
 Amoeba dubia
670,000,000,000

 Amoeba proteus 290,000,000,000

 Bufo bufo (Frog)
6,900,000,000

 Homo sapiens (Man)
2,900,000,000 

One of the largest genomes belongs to a very small creature, Amoeba dubia. 
This protozoan genome has 670 billion units of DNA, or base pairs. 
The genome of a cousin, Amoeba proteus, has a mere 290 billion base pairs, making it 100 times larger than the human genome.
 
Frogs have much larger DNA.
 
They accumulated all the genomic features to overcome the adversity is one of my hypothesis.

The second is the ability to hibernate.
 
Third is the ability to live both in water and land.
 
The ability to metamorphosis is probably made them survive with mutations.
 
After tuna fish they stand alone in the evolutionary history of this planet.
 
There is a little toad in us; at least the five fingers in humans (including writers) have an evolutionary link.

Additionally if they disappear in our nature it is a sure sign of pollution and our soil and water is not healthy for drinking and cultivation.

They are our main bio-indicators.
 
I suppose Victor Ivan read this at leisure.

When I hear frogs croaking in my neighborhood, I know they are coming to roost and breed on my FREE water tanks.
It is rare to see a tree frog now.

They are the cleanest (compared to rats) to dissect and we used to do without gloves.
 
Don’t tell the Chinese and Koreans who come here to visit that we have frogs.

In a decade we will exterminate the frog population.

Dogs (Victor is worried about stray dogs) flesh and toads are their delicacies.
 
Every Kilo of beef we spend 8 to16 kilos of grain which is enough to supplement protein deficiency in our children.
During Sirima's time we designed the Thriposha.
I know one company in this country has taken the lead and produce healthy and nutritious snacks from grains.
We don’t need to kill or for that mater rear goose or chicken.
Chicken is the most unhealthy meat of all stuffed with hormones that cause breast cancer in young females.

Latest

11 Million Years ago

38 Million years

66 Million years

Next
In 16 million years

In my book Ceylon and its Origin, I have used the above information to formulate, the formation of two or three plateaus (peneplains) and the hill country, as a hypothesis.
But I am more interested in our prehistory which our ancient Buddhist monks have deliberately erased (probably by the instruction of the Kings and Queens) by vandalizing and turning the caves into ashen remains or temples.

We have few remains of our prehistoric man.
 
I believe they were decimated by design of by natural disasters (small pox or even measles brought in by the invaders).
I believe the former since the lack of remains explains the erasing of the ancient history by design.
 
The ancient man never evolved here (not enough time) but have come by sea.
There was no link to Indian subcontinent then.
From where did they come from?
That is my question to the anthropologists. 
 
In this period we did not have comets to explain extinction.

Comets
Whitmire already showed back in 1985 — when he first started looking into the possibility of Planet Nine-related comet barrages — that the pattern held for at least the last 250 million years. Newer research suggests that these barrages may actually have been happening for as much as 500 million years, and quite possibly longer.

The latest comet shower is thought to have occurred around 11 or so million years ago, around the time of the Middle Miocene mass extinction.
Before that, similar events were thought to have occurred around 38 and 66 million years ago, the latter thought to be the comets that killed off the dinosaurs.

Don’t ring the alarm bells though for the next bombardment. Humankind will likely be dramatically evolved (if hopefully not long gone) by the time Planet Nine passes through the Kuiper Belt again. “Modern man doesn’t have worry about the next comet shower for 16 million years,” Whitman quipped.

Renaissance

Renaissance
 
After reading Victor Ivan’s article I felt like reproducing a piece of a chapter called Plant Watching (written for for elder statesmen).

Since Victor also fall into elder statesman category it is worth for his reading too.

I got interested in water lillies over the past three years and found it extremely difficult to make them flower.
After two years of waiting time, just yesterday, I noticed that there were two of them about to flower.
Mind you I look at them daily when I feed the fish.
The flowering is timed by a weather cycle (including ambient temperature) exacting to nano seconds, is my gut feeling.

They have over 20 odd sensing mechanism,even modern scientists have failed to work out.
We have only five.
 
Evolution has made us upright but without three mirrors we cannot drive a bus or a lorry.
We can run forward but we cannot run backwards. or turn sidewards abruptly.
I think even elephants so big can turn sidewards if they wanted.
If we believe god had created (which is totally untrue) us he has made lot of mistakes including not being able to understand plant senses.

Without plants this world cannot exist.

They were the first to evolve.
 
We had over 2000 rice varieties to suit any weather (including probably global warming) in this country.
Because of our wrong agriculture policy we have lost all but 50.
America killed the Philippines Rice Industry and now the farmers (two were killed recently in riots) are fighting for a meal.

Before they killed the rice industry they took away all the genetic material and stored them in super-coolers.

Plant Sense
Plants, unlike animals, do not have ears, eyes, or tongues to help them feel and acquire information from their environment. But they do sense their environment in other ways and respond accordingly. Scientists have shown that plants can detect various wavelengths and use colors to tell them what the environment is like. When a plant grows in the shadow of another, it will send a shoot straight up towards the light source. It has also been shown that plants know when it is day and when it is night. Leaf pores on plants open up to allow photosynthesis during the daytime and close at night to reduce water loss. Plants also respond to ultraviolet light by producing a substance that is essentially a sunscreen so that they do not get sunburned.
Plants can sense weather changes and temperatures as well.
Plants have specific regulators, plant hormones, minerals and ions that are involved in cell signaling and are important in environmental sensing. In fact, without these, the plants will not grow properly.
Here are some examples of plant signaling.

1. Plant shoots grow up and roots grow down because they are responding opposite to the force of gravity. Shoots grow in the opposite direction of gravity (up) while roots grow towards gravity (down). The root cap senses force of gravity, transforms that information into a signal regulated by hormones and ions that the growing region of the root can understand.
Scientists still do not know exactly what the signal is.
This signaling results in one side of the root growing faster than the other, so the root curves downward.

2. Plants also respond to wind or touch.
If plants are in a windy spot they build thicker and tougher wind resistant stems. They can also sense when insects are on them. This can cause them to produce a chemical defense system.
The six authors—among them Eric D. Brenner, an American plant molecular biologist; Stefano Mancuso, an Italian plant physiologist; František Baluška, a Slovak cell biologist; and Elizabeth Van Volkenburgh, an American plant biologist—argued that the sophisticated behaviors observed in plants cannot at present be completely explained by familiar genetic and biochemical mechanisms. Plants are able to sense and optimally respond to so many environmental variables—light, water, gravity, temperature, soil structure, nutrients, toxins, microbes, herbivores, chemical signals from other plants—that there may exist some brain like information processing system to integrate the data and coordinate the plant’s behavioral response.
The authors pointed out that electrical and chemical signaling systems have been identified in plants which are homologous to those found in the nervous systems of animals. They also noted that neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and glutamate have been found in plants, though their role remains unclear.
Indeed, many of the most impressive capabilities of plants can be traced to their unique existential predicament as beings rooted to the ground and therefore unable to pick up and move when they need something or when conditions turn unfavorable.
The “sessile life style,” as plant biologists term it, calls for an extensive and nuanced understanding of one’s immediate environment, since the plant has to find everything it needs, and has to defend itself, while remaining fixed in place.
A highly developed sensory apparatus is required to locate food and identify threats.
Plants have evolved between fifteen and twenty distinct senses, including analogues of our five:
Smell and taste (they sense and respond to chemicals in the air or on their bodies);
Sight (they react differently to various wavelengths of light as well as to shadow);
Touch (a vine or a root “knows” when it encounters a solid object);
It has been discovered, even sound.
In a recent experiment, Heidi Appel, a chemical ecologist at the University of Missouri, found that, when she played a recording of a caterpillar chomping a leaf for a plant that hadn’t been touched, the sound primed the plant’s genetic machinery to produce defense chemicals. Another experiment, done in Mancuso’s laboratory and not yet published, found that plant roots would seek out a buried pipe through which water was flowing even if the exterior of the pipe was dry, which suggested that plants somehow “hear” the sound of flowing water.
At least it can sense the vibration.

Why I have stopped writing about Linux?

I have stopped writing about Linux  (this site is named Linux 100) mainly because of of the popularity of the smartphones.

Smartphone  is a minicomputer and is slowly outstripping the PC Market.

Reason for listing the history is to show how Linux contributed to IT industry and how Microsoft tried to kill Linux by various alliances (Novel included).

1. Android is Linux based (has taken over the place of Apple iPhone).

Microsoft is NOW struggling to enter the phone market.

2. Unlike Apple and Microsoft, Linux has many desktops from minimal to heavy (KDE).

I love Gnome but now Xfce4 is almost becoming the standard due to its low usage (fast) of resources.

3. Server market is dominated by Linux.

4. The cloud can be easily managed by Linux.

5. The story is when one cannot kill, one has to embrace it.
Microsoft is lately doing it to survive in the Cloud Market.

The bottom line is if you have money buy the elegant iPhone. 

If you are low in budget or want a second smartphone by an Android and not a Microsoft (you have to pay for every little thing you download).

Of course you have Samsung (again Linux derivative) as an attractive design. 

In the meantime F-Droid free software version of Android is building up its repertoire of software.

Linux is all over the place and Microsoft cannot monopolize.

I am one of those guys who used Linux exclusively and pity the guys who pay for a product which is out of date.

History of Linux
Reproduction

1991:
The Linux kernel is publicly announced on 25 August by the 21-year-old Finnish student Linus Benedict Torvalds.

1992:
The Linux kernel is relicensed under the GNU GPL. The first Linux distributions are created.
   
1993:
Over 100 developers work on the Linux kernel. With their assistance the kernel is adapted to the GNU environment, which creates a large spectrum of application types for Linux. The oldest currently (as of 2015) existing Linux distribution,

Slackware, is released for the first time. Later in the same year, the Debian project is established. Today it is the largest community distribution.
   
1994:
Torvalds judges all components of the kernel to be fully matured: he releases version 1.0 of Linux. The XFree86 project contributes a graphical user interface (GUI).
Commercial Linux distribution makers Red Hat and SUSE publish version 1.0 of their Linux distributions.
   
1995:
Linux is ported to the DEC Alpha and to the Sun SPARC. Over the following years it is ported to an ever greater number of platforms.
   
1996:
Version 2.0 of the Linux kernel is released. The kernel can now serve several processors at the same time using symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), and thereby becomes a serious alternative for many companies.
   
1998:
Many major companies such as IBM, Compaq and Oracle announce their support for Linux.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is first published as an essay (later as a book), resulting in Netscape publicly releasing the source code to its Netscape Communicator web browser suite.
Netscape's actions and crediting of the essay brings Linux's open source development model to the attention of the popular technical press.

In addition a group of programmers begins developing the graphical user interface KDE.
   
1999:
A group of developers begin work on the graphical environment GNOME, destined to become a free replacement for KDE, which at the time, depends on the, then proprietary, Qt toolkit.
During the year IBM announces an extensive project for the support of Linux.
   
2000:
Dell announces that it is now the No. 2 provider of Linux-based systems worldwide and the first major manufacturer to offer Linux across its full product line.

2002:
The media reports that "Microsoft killed Dell Linux"
   
2004:
The XFree86 team splits up and joins with the existing X standards body to form the X.Org Foundation, which results in a substantially faster development of the X server for Linux.
   
2005:
The project openSUSE begins a free distribution from Novell's community.
Also the project OpenOffice.org introduces version 2.0 that then started supporting OASIS OpenDocument standards.
   
2006:
Oracle releases its own distribution of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Novell and Microsoft announce cooperation for a better interoperability and mutual patent protection.
   
2007:
Dell starts distributing laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed on them.
   
2009:
RedHat's market capitalization equals Sun's, interpreted as a symbolic moment for the "Linux-based economy".
   
2011:
Version 3.0 of the Linux kernel is released.
   
2012:
The aggregate Linux server market revenue exceeds that of the rest of the Unix market.
   
2013:
Google's Linux-based Android claims 75% of the smartphone market share, in terms of the number of phones shipped.
   
2014:
Ubuntu claims 22,000,000 users.
   
2015:
Version 4.0 of the Linux kernel is released.