Plants can see! See you eat them!

I have always secretly hoped that someday we would discover that plants are just as sentient as animals, and as a result, the ethical vegans of the world would be forced to come to terms with the fact that when it comes to food, they are no less murderous than cow and chicken-eating people like me.

I wrote that paragraph back in May of this year in regards to recent findings that plants possess a sense of smell and are therefore one step closer to sentience. 

Scientists have taken another enormous step in that direction with the recent discovery that plants can see.

That’s right. There is evidence suggesting that the innocent carrot that you munched on last night was able to see before you decided to kill it.

They don’t see pictures. But they see colors, they see directions, they see intensities. But on a certain level, plants might think that we’re visually limited because plants see things that we can’t see. They see UV light and they see far red light, and we can’t see that at all. So I think we can say that plants see. It knows quite a bit, much more than we give them credit for.”

Plants can see. They can smell. We know from plants like the Venus fly trap that at least some plants possess the power of touch.

What will we discover next?

I also wrote this back in May, but it still seems especially fitting:

Brace yourself, my vegan friends, We may soon discover that plants are capable of playing chess and debating the merits of a Parliamentary government.