Some green thumbs insist that talking to plants helps them grow and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is putting that popular idea to the test with a technological twist.
As part of "MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition," the museum created an interactive experiment that lets anyone tweet at a plant at the museum through the project's official website. The unique message gets turned into robotic speech that then travels through a speaker to the plant.
The museum teamed up with the agency Carmichael Lynch, an organization that focuses on digital media, public relations and more, to create a special tweet-to-speech technology. Visitors to the official site can actually hear the technology at work; as a new tweet comes in, the robot sounds it out.
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To evaluate the results clearly, another plant currently sits in silence. The museum will look at the overall growth of both plants over the course of the experiment as well as the color and size of the plants' leaves.
So far, Twitter users have sent the lucky plant everything from words of encouragement to harsh messages. The museum will keep tabs on how many words, characters and messages reach the plant.
Dear plant, do you have a favorite poet? Walt Whitman, perhaps? I think you'd like "Leaves of Grass" #talktoaplant talktoaplant.com
— Tara Olson Medina (@taraolsonmedina October 10, 2013
Who's a good plant? You're a good plant. Yes, you are. You're a good plant. Atta boy. #talktoaplant talktoaplant.com
— Alexey Shelestenko (@akahamlet October 10, 2013
You deserve to die, plant. #talktoaplant talktoaplant.com
— Sylvain Paley (@SylvainPaley) October 10, 2013
"MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition" runs until Feb. 2.
Image: Flickr, Mark Dixon; Plant pictured is not involved in the experiment.
BONUS: 8 Creative Uses for Twitter You've Never Tried
Anybody who tweets knows that making a compelling sentence out of 140 characters can be incredibly difficult. Now try adding in a solid beginning, middle and end.
A number of Twitter accounts have taken up the challenge with great success. @VeryShortStory tweets humorous micro-fiction in 140 characters or less. A recent tweet: "Today is special. Getting out of jail. I will not go see Donna. I will not see what shoes she's wearing. Too much trouble to dig her up."
In 2012, A Visit From the Goon Squad author Jennifer Egan posted a short story called "Black Box" on The New Yorker's fiction Twitter feed (@NYerFiction), breaking the story down into a series of tweets which were later published in the magazine. @GoodCaptain likewise created a novel out of serialized tweets.
If poetry is more your thing, check out "The Longest Poem in the World", an epic poem composed of rhyming real-time tweets.
Botanicalls originally allowed your house plants to call your cellphone when they were thirsty. But like you, those plants have moved on to social media.
With a Botanicalls Kit, an ethernet connection and a bit of patience, you can set up an electronic sensor for your plants; it will automatically send you a Twitter message when your plant needs to be watered. You'll even get a thank you note when you complete the task. Pothos, a plant that tweets with Botanicalls, has amassed 4,000 followers.
There are quite a few ways to turn Twitter into an interactive game. In 2010, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti (@peretti) created a short Choose Your Adventure game for Twitter using Bitly shortlinks. @Artwiculate is a vocabulary game that gives you a word of the day and challenges you to use it in a tweet. The person whose tweet gets the most likes and retweets wins. There are real-time Twitter games for chess and Mad Libs, too.
Remember the Milk is a reminder app that functions across multiple digital platforms, from smartphones to tablets to Twitter. Send instructions to the app via a Twitter DM (after following the app's Twitter account, @rtm), and Remember the Milk will add the task to your account. You can also change your preferences and view specific to-do tasks using Direct Message commands.
Gourmet recipes in 140 characters? It can be done. @Cookbook, by Maureen Evans (@Maureen), posts bite-size recipes for dishes that range from omelets to souffle to tiramisu. They're highly abbreviated, of course. Here's a recent tweet: "Grapefruit Soup: Mexico. Peel4fruit; boil+h2o to cvr/T ging/¼t cinn&rdpep&salt/2clove. Cvr,simmr15m until fallen apart; +honey&lem to taste."
For simpler fare, check out @TinyRecipes, or @Mixologist for quick and delicious cocktails.
Create a digital diet diary with Tweet What You Eat. The idea behind the site is simple: You'll make better choices about what you eat if you're publicly tweeting every bite. Even without the app, studies have shown that tweeting as part of a diet program can help you trim down and tone up.
Unfortunately, sharing every meal means your followers will know what's passing through your digestive system at any given moment.
Alon Nir of Tweet Your Prayers (@TheKotel) delivers 140-character prayers to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The Western Wall, or Kotel, is considered one of the most sacred religious sites in Judaism. In 2009, Nir began printing prayers that he received via Direct Message on Twitter and sticking them into the Western Wall on behalf of those who couldn't travel to Israel.
There's a Tweet Your Prayers iPhone app as well.
Man's best friend can join the conversation fun with Puppy Tweets, an electronic tracker that posts live updates about your pet to Twitter. A tag on your dog's collar senses motion activity and sends a signal to a USB receiver attached to your computer. The receiver then shares one of 500 preset tweets to your puppy's Twitter account. For example: "Had a wonderful dream about you. You were bringing me snacks!"