Y'all are extremely flattering, but I'm not doing my job as a proper skeptic.
I SHOULD go re-read it as I read real scientific papers: try to intuit the authors' REAL agenda.
For example, these guys might be the frustrated experts of a scientific field no one else ever heard about, "cm-scale root interactions".
Basically, advertising for their view of what should get more attention and funding.
But in this case, I kinda believe that what they said IS really what they wanted to get across:
"We had lotsa fun playing with LEGO blocks, and every time we propose a research plan where we have to spend thousands of dollars for fancy root-cubes, they reject our application!"
At least now when they list articles about whatever their real research interest is, they can pad the list with a "paper" about cm-scale root cubes.
Actually, I didn't realize that "PLOS" was an open-source online "journal". I've seen it cited by sources I did think well of, which somewhat validates its professionalism.
