Pushing the right buttons: Fern guides its embryo's sense of up and down

Passing on fundamental life lessons from parent to offspring is not unique to humans and animals. Ferns do it too. Not with words, but through pressure. By applying force at precisely the right locations, a fern tells its embryo what is up and what is down, and therefore where roots and leaves should develop. This phenomenon was discovered by Ph.D. candidate Sjoerd Woudenberg in his research on the fern Ceratopteris richardii. He defended his doctoral thesis at Wageningen University & Research.