Mikko Tuomi<p>Since ancient times, <a href="https://scicomm.xyz/tags/plants" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>plants</span></a>’ ability to orient their eyeless bodies toward the nearest, brightest source of light — known today as <a href="https://scicomm.xyz/tags/phototropism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>phototropism</span></a> — has fascinated scholars and generated countless scientific and philosophical debates.</p><p>And over the past 150 years, botanists have successfully unraveled many of the key molecular pathways that underpin how plants sense light and act on that information.</p><p>Yet a critical mystery has endured.</p><p>Animals use <a href="https://scicomm.xyz/tags/eyes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>eyes</span></a> — a complex organ of lenses and photoreceptors — to gain a detailed picture of the world around them, including the direction of light.</p><p>Plants, biologists have established, possess a powerful suite of molecular tools for measuring illumination.</p><p>But in the absence of obvious physical sensing organs like lenses, how do plants work out the precise direction from which light is coming?</p><p><a href="https://scicomm.xyz/tags/biology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>biology</span></a><br><a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/plants-find-light-using-gaps-between-their-cells-20240131/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">quantamagazine.org/plants-find</span><span class="invisible">-light-using-gaps-between-their-cells-20240131/</span></a></p>