CURIOSITY – DIVING INTO THE UNKNOWN

• BY BIANCA JOUBERT

Why is the sky blue? Why do snails like rain? Do trees get thirsty? Our questions are driven by curiosity. Curiosity is at the core of the human experience and brings us back to our childhood. The thirst for knowledge of scientists is not so different from that of children, people taking nature walks or visiting a museum...

The intellectual curiosity that triggers scientific discoveries is often driven by our sense of wonder. A way of questioning the world, a call of the unknown that guides researchers who are eager for answers or astonishment in their patient experiments.

THE JOY OF LEARNING

For many, science is a source of joy in and of itself. Simple, seemingly naive questions lead to the joy of learning—a topic so dear to Fernand Séguin—and to the limits of what is possible. Without curiosity, there is no research!

It was curiosity that prompted Simon Joly, a researcher at the Jardin botanique, to analyze more than 2,500 species of flowering plants with his colleague Daniel Schoen of McGill University, in order to successfully test Darwin's 150-year-old hypothesis about "invisible flowers.” The idea that these flowers would ensure the reproductive capabilities of certain species had not yet been tested, despite attempts by many generations of botanists. This is one of the 10 foremost discoveries of 2021, according to Quebec Science.

CULTIVATING A SENSE OF WONDER AND THE SPIRIT OF INQUIRY

Plants are far from inert and never cease to surprise us. Their strangeness, their incredible diversity, their ingenious strategies to find food and conquer new territories, to react to their environment, to defend themselves or even to communicate, are worthy of our curiosity.

The word curiosity comes from the Latin cura—or care. Someone who is curious is therefore in essence a person who takes care. And to take care, you need to pay attention. "If museums attach great importance to the transmission of knowledge, stimulating curiosity is also crucial—by drawing people’s attention, by making them curious about nature, about themselves and others, by cultivating a spirit of investigation that is a wonderful source of emotions and sensations," explains Annabelle Mimouni, educational project officer at the Jardin botanique.

CHANGING HOW WE SEE PLANTS

Plants appeared on Earth about 470 million years ago. They have quietly colonized the entire planet and allowed the animal world to also flourish. Plants are sometimes underestimated and have yet to reveal all their secrets... Recent research has shown, for example, that trees use a form of communication between themselves and with other species. But how to pique interest in the silent and motionless world of plants? "You don't force curiosity, you awaken it," said author Daniel Pennac. The Jardin botanique is at the crossroads of research, science, culture and education and works to reconstruct—and deepen—our link with the plant world.

In this spirit, the Jardin botanique team is preparing a new event for the summer of 2022, and it is sure to arouse your curiosity and awaken your sense of wonder!