That's how biologists study changes and shift in diurnal cycle and circadian rhythm with pretty much every organisms. Rapid eclipse-like changed have been studied in automated incubation chamber. And all this was already known, and was part of my biology text book 20 years ago. That scientific news in NYT is the new normal sensationalism. The plants aren't really shocked. They've dealt with that for millions of year. It's not like they can escape, or turn on the artificial light bulb.