Hope Jahren's Lab Girl Essay

Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl is a memoir divided into three parts about her role as a scientist, friend, mother, and lover. In the book, Jahren gives intimate details into her childhood, years as a student, professor in three separate universities, wife to a brilliant mathematician and as a mother to a boy. Sometimes the facts about her life transition seamlessly into a narrative about botany, usually revolving around the secret life of plants of all different types. Whether she is describing the early years and patient hope of the seedling, the restlessness of tree awaiting death, or the evolved spine of an ingenious cactus, Jahren relates the plants’ internal desires and activity in a break takingly human way throughout the book.

The reason for

The interesting question scientists raised is, can we relate to them? The answer is ‘yes’. For instance, the genes necessary to tell a plant whether it is light or dark, time cell division, and promote the proper functioning of the immune system are contained within the human genome as well. (Armstrong) “People have to realize that plants are complex organisms that live rich, sensual lives.” (Scientific American) Plants smell, taste, feel pain, have memory, and communicate. Orchids give off a human body odor to attract mosquitoes and plants that cannot stay alive through photosynthesis live off other plants. They find ways to avoid incest through complex internal warning systems and desert plants have been known to gamble as humans do, even when it means they take on greater risk in the process. (Pennisi) Jahren states that the cholla cactus had an ‘idea’ to grow a spine, (Jahren 64) the process of evolution took millions of years in that case. They exhibit patience and foresight to make up for their rootedness. The fact that plants remain rooted to the ground causes the misconception that there is nothing going on within them. Yet, this only means that they have developed through evolution to ward off parasites, reproduce, and find food in ways unique from the organisms in the animal