"These results demonstrate the potential in studying plant bioacoustics, suggest that plant acoustic emissions may play an important role in ecology and evolution, and may have direct implications for plant monitoring in agriculture"
To me even the "suggests..." part is wild overselling. IMO this should have been in such a high impact journal only if they had actually succeeded in demonstrating the ecological relevance, by showing that the sounds are detected and acted upon by other organisms.
If you hit your tissue hard enough, it becomes blueish for a while (a bruise, a hemorrhage). It may benefit something by accident, but a bruise just can’t stay as pink as the rest of you, due to the physics of the process.
(From tfa) Plants exposed to drought stress have been shown to experience cavitation – a process where air bubbles form, expand and collapse in the xylem, causing vibrations
In other words, dry wood cracks.
Trees might be screaming/bubble-popping into the abyss for simple physical reasons, but if cavitation is very important to some creature, there’s a decent chance that creature has evolved to sense these vibrations.
How dare you translate academic technobabble to common tongue?
> In other words, dry wood cracks.
I don't think it's saying that at all
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering...
Religion has a cost (lots of resources and time are spent on them) and they have lasted through time, therefore it is evolutionarily beneficial.
A small percentage of the population is psychopaths, this has an obvious cost to communities, but the pattern has lasted through time, therefore has a benefit. Likely it's for war/fighting/hunting.
Growing light sensitive cells has a cost in energy and materials, and has lasted through time, therefore it must have a benefit (sight).
This strongly suggests that SOMETHING is listening to that plant make noise and it either directly or indirectly benefits the plant.
As a thought experiment, reverse the question: how could we assume that there aren’t interconnected phenomena after discovering evidence that this phenomena exists?
Even if we never discover what those interconnections are or establish labels for them, interconnection/interdependence is the continuing unfolding of everything, and so I tend to think a more helpful default is to wonder what those interactions are instead of if they exist.
At a minimum, Newton’s 3rd law applies, and however subtle the effects, they are almost certainly there. Where or not they’re particularly interesting to us or “useful” to human inquiry is another question entirely.
From this article:
> Recently, plants were also demonstrated to respond to sounds,13,28,29,30 e.g., by changing the expression of specific genes,29,30 or by increasing sugar concentration in their nectar.31
So there is enough indirect evidence for hypothesis formation.
The sound emission frequencies are also within the hearing ranges of various animals, some of which are herbivores, and some of which eat herbivores. It would be to their benefit to decode the meaning of plant sounds.
Like, a human?
They're saying it merits further investigation, not presenting it as a hard fact. To claim that's "wild overselling" and that it doesn't belong in a "high impact" journal is wildly underselling the study. They make sure to use the word "may" in everything they suggest that's not directly backed up by the study.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest#:~....
"... majority view of the quantum mechanics community then and arguably to this day is that existence in the absence of an observer is at best a conjecture"
> Recently, plants were also demonstrated to respond to sounds,13,28,29,30 e.g., by changing the expression of specific genes,29,30 or by increasing sugar concentration in their nectar.31 Thus, if plants emit airborne sounds, these sounds can potentially trigger a rapid response in nearby organisms, including both animals and plants.
I wonder whether there are people who can hear these sounds, even faintly.
We already know that plants transmit information to each other through the air by emitting chemicals. It doesn't seem hugely significant whether or not they also do it by emitting sounds.
The point here is that although maybe the mechanism here is just a mechanical process (although, what isn't?), the important thing are the responses to this, by the plant, other plants, and other organisms. Boiling water isn't going to take some action based upon it boiling nor are other organisms.
https://www.science.org/content/article/plants-communicate-d...
I remember hearing this at a seminar of new age things (I was doing an investigative thing at the time, which is why I was there)
So they already are!
We can now process it, so, as proactive evolution, it worked.
Before that,
> We know that certain animals are capable of hearing these sounds ... We still need to understand who is using this sound, what role does it play in the world, but it suggests many many possibilities // It's also possible plants themselves could react to these sounds, Hadany said. The same team found in a paper published in 2019 that plants can respond to the sounds of pollinators like bees. "They respond within three minutes by making sweeter nectar"
Whether or not plants suffer has no bearing on whether we should cause animals to suffer. Animal agriculture requires the use of more plants as animal feed than eating plants directly, so even if plants feel pain, we'd cause less harm by eating them than eating animals.
> If plants suffer too, isn't it wrong to eat them as well?
This says nothing about plant sentience and whether or not they suffer. You shouldn't conclude that plants suffer simply because cutting their leaves results in a sound. We know animals are sentient, we don't have currently beleive that plants are.
None of those concerns are new. Jainism is at least three millennia old.
Is this going to drive my food prices even higher?
In all seriousness, this is wild.
Vegans are a portion of a percent of the human population, maybe a bit more around YNews.. meanwhile how many red meat eaters out there? reading now?
> The BFG could hear the tread of a ladybird's footsteps as she walks across a leaf, the whispering of ants as they carry around in the soil talking to one another, and the sudden shrill cry of pain a tree gives out when a woodman cuts into it with an axe.
https://www.icsestudyguide.com/2020/10/class-5-english-liter...
Isn’t that enough?
My body bloats in a passive process after it stops functioning, I avoid that
Even so, I can’t fly away from a tiger or bear. That analogy coupled with seeing that everything that can move, tries to move, makes me think plants would if they could. Sea anemones are very rudimentary and blind systems, and even they uproot themselves and “swim” away in the sloppiest way imaginable when a starfish is detected. Plenty of plants were able to select for defense mechanisms before reproduction. I think all would given the option.
No, that is not enough.
For those that haven't witnessed it, I will describe a very easily constructed experiment to demonstrate this phenomena that I have discovered: first stretch a string tightly and then quickly flick it with your finger, stressing it even more. If you listen, you will hears a sound emitted by the stressed string that gradually dies off as the string recovers. Nearby strings will start vibrating in sympathy (if they are tuned properly). Could one string be communicating with the other strings?
Common objects may be used to make the experiment easier to perform: banjos, guitars, violins, etc.
Plants are incredibly complex yet people roll their eyes at the idea of them doing anything besides nothing. Maybe because it undermines the idea of veganism. idk, sorry lesser beings i'm hungry.
2) I find your debate that "structure/texture changing plant matter making sounds is the same as animal matter/brain feeling"... interesting.
How? Unlike cows, soybeans are harvested at the end or near to the end of it's lifecycle.
Also huge amount of cows now require vast amounts of soybeans. So if you want to decrease harvesting of soybeans you need to first decrease farming of cows. So vegans are already in favor of decreasing soybean production.
> They may be filling your house with deafening clicks...
> These noises are at about the volume of a normal human conversation...
Rephrased: "for the standards of a plant as we may have imagined it, those noises may seem deafening".
I think as long as we are within the realm of reality, no single person or species can know everything so we need to accept contextual knowledge will be out limitation.
I often wonder to what level will we need to know someone to be able to satisfy abstract statements.
it truly is fascinating !
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_science_fiction
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose#Science_...
> And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil.
> One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possessed me then
> And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"
> And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots!
> You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust."(via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35396901, but we merged that thread hither)
To delve deeper into this idea, ponder the question, “Can AI bridge the gap between human consciousness and that of other animals, like whales?” Investigating the inherent intelligence within these patterns can provide us with valuable insights.
As we embark on an era where humanity sets an example for our behavior towards less powerful beings, it’s crucial to acknowledge that artificial general intelligence (AGI) might replicate our actions. The time has come for us to establish a benchmark and pave the way for a more ethical and harmonious world.
Additionally, many have heard of animals that feast on fallen fruit. Embracing a similar approach could prove beneficial for humans before we contemplate altering our DNA to incorporate photosynthesis in the quest for ideal ethics. So, let’s keep an open mind and explore the possibilities! ;)
Should probably be merged with this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35396901
Different links, but basically the same thing.
ehhmm... yep?
Do we know of any special type of sound unable to travel by the air that could be recorded by a microphone separated by several cm of air?
>"this sound is informative"
Not different than saying "Plants had evolved a plant telephone to be informed from other plants or inform animals that they need a pee, right now"
Why a plant in a humid spot at the valley should suffer and react as its neighbors in a dry spot on the top of the hill? That would be inefficient and negative for their survival. Does not add much to the info that they have yet (collected with their own roots) and can be deceptive.
I noticed that forks emit a sound when they are drop and hit the soil. So this means that is a mechanism to alert other forks of the danger. So forks must have ears. Pure logic.
"We assume a link between many things that could be unrelated in order to sell animism 2.0 and grab eyeballs" would be a better title
Tree pheromone communication is well know.
Plant -> fungus communication as well.
Here’s a writeup that covers both: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering...
Is sound too shocking a step?
https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/dutch-tree-sends-tweets-ab...
/s
No, more seriously, stop giving an emotional meaning to a sound.