Why aren’t the sunflowers facing the sun in these videos?

In early August 2024, Tik Tok Viral He boldly claimed that “something is wrong with the sun.” The evidence for that post? A group of sunflowers, known to turn their flowers throughout the day to follow the sun in the sky, were facing the sun. Snopes found numerous last Videos Documenting the same phenomenon that dates back several years.

While the posts didn’t always come to conclusions about the sunflowers’ behavior, the main insinuation was that the behavior was unnatural, and that there was a large-scale conspiracy in the works. Some users suggested that the sun had been replaced with artificial light, and that the sunflowers were actually following the “real sun.” This claim was supported by other users who commented that “nature is constantly giving us signs,” that they were tanning differently, that they noticed the sun changing color from yellow to white, and that the April 2024 solar eclipse might have been involved in some way.

But using sunflowers’ “weird” behavior as evidence of a larger conspiracy won’t work if the behavior isn’t weird in the first place. And as it turns out, sunflowers don’t always follow the sun, contrary to popular belief.

It is called switching behavior. Solar orientationfrom the Greek word for “sun” and “rotation,” and although it is most often associated with the sunflower (scientific name Annual sunflower Botanists have noticed and recorded this for long time agoIn many different plants. But whether sunflowers really follow the sun has been proven. It has been discussed for a long time.:Sixteenth-century herbalists also questioned whether this behavior was real.

The truth lies somewhere in between: while young sunflowers follow the sun across the sky all day, this behavior stops once the sunflowers reach maturity.

Research group in University of California, Davis Researchers have discovered that sunflowers, just like humans, have internal clocks called circadian rhythms that allow them to make changes based on the time of day. While humans generally associate circadian rhythms with our sleep cycles, the tiny sunflowers use their circadian rhythms to track the sun.

According to The group research, The tiny sunflower follows the sun by growing only one side of its stem depending on the time of day. When the sun is shining, the plant’s stem grows more on the east side, pushing the flower head toward the west as the sun moves in that direction. At night, the plant’s stem grows more on the west side, pushing the flower head back toward the east, where the sun will rise in the morning.

However, once sunflowers reach maturity, their circadian rhythm changes in favor of early morning light. So the flowers settle down and always face east to catch the morning sun rather than following it across the sky.

So, no, the sun has not been replaced. The sunflowers in the viral videos are mature sunflowers, not babies. Although these sunflowers were following the sun across the sky, they stopped as they matured and faced east.

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