Jonathan Drori: Every pollen grain has a story

http://www.ted.com Pollen goes unnoticed by most of us, except when hay fever strikes. But microscopes reveal it comes in stunning colors and shapes -- and travels remarkably well. Jonathan Drori gives an up-close glimpse of these fascinating flecks of plant courtship.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Jonathan
• Drori
• TEDTalks
• TED
• talks
• pollen
• botany
• plant
• plantlife
• biology
• life
• stamen
• pistil
• reproduction
• scanning
• electron
• micrograph
• photo
• photography

[MorganStack]

Alternative Title:

Jonathan Drori: 12 things you didn't know about Plant Porn.

[RichardRoy2]

Ah, spring is in the air, and everyone is out sniffing plant genitalia.

[esmeraldakrzeminski]

fantastic report .. congrats =)

[ReX342]

Stupid trees having sex all up in my face all the time. Making me sneeze.

[ParaglidingManiac]

I didn't plan on watching this, I've just stumbled into this but got carried away with his interesting speech.

[1091Floyd21]

At what point does the microspore become known as the pollen grain? Is it as soon as the microspore mother cell has divided by meosis to produce the microspores, that they are considered pollen grains OR is it when division by mitosis occurs producing the generitive & tube cells enclosed by a thick, that it is considered to be a pollen grain.

[1091Floyd21]

At what point does the microspore become known as the pollen grain? Is it as soon as the microspore mother cell has divided by meosis to produce the microspores, that they are considered pollen grains OR is it when division by mitosis occurs producing the generitive & tube cells enclosed by a thick, that it is considered to be a pollen grain.

[roeliox]

so mr. Bean got into pollen right? Right?!

[isellsoap1]

At least it doesn't get in my eye ;)

[HamOnCan]

that the pollen signature us that distinctive . is amazing. . that each plant is a respnse to the cosmic sound vibrations from the point where they ground on earth and respond enkind on the particular species. . . the sacred geometric of the cosmic sound vibrations were wever more obvious than on any else I've seen so far. awesome show

[ronnyim12345]

oo my, soooo many jizz/sex/seamen jokes come to mind.

[Daoak28]

dispersion of wind pollen by a tree is like the tree ejaculating for 5 hours