Plant twist: Plants scream when they’re stressed
Turns out your houseplants have been screaming for attention this whole time - you just couldn’t hear them!
We’ve all had a little chat with a plant now and then.
Whether a gentle “you’re looking good today” or a dramatic “how dare you!” when you accidentally knock over a pot plant.
What if (all this time) your plants have been talking back to you, and you just couldn’t hear them?
Well, it turns out plants can actually make sounds, especially when they’re stressed out.
New research shows that when plants like tomatoes or tobacco are thirsty, hurt, or unhappy, they let out tiny “screams.”
Okay, it’s not a horror-movie scream… it’s more like a soft popping sound, similar to bubble wrap being popped.
Thankfully though, these sounds are at a frequency way too high for human ears to pick up.
Take a listen:
An evolutionary biologist named Lilach Hadany and her team at Tel Aviv University decided to investigate whether plants actually make noise.
In 2019, they proved that plants can hear sounds. Now, they’ve shown that plants can produce them too.
Using ultra-sensitive microphones, they recorded healthy plants, then compared those sounds to stressed ones; like plants that hadn’t been watered or had their stems cut.
The result? Stressed plants popped out around 30 to 50 little sounds an hour, while healthy plants stayed almost silent.
While they started with tomatoes and tobacco, the researchers found the same thing in other plants like corn, wheat, grapevines, and even cacti.
An algorithm was trained to tell the difference between the sounds different plants make when they’re stressed.
At this rate, we might soon have a phone app that tells you when your fern’s feeling down or your tomato plant’s begging for a drink.
While we can’t hear these plant sounds, researchers say it’s likely other creatures can.
Moths looking for a place to lay eggs or animals looking for a snack might be tuned in to these tiny cries for help.
The researchers are now exploring how other plants and animals might react to these secret plant sounds in the wild.
ALSO READ: Hippo horror: St Lucia tourist cheats death
So, the next time you’re watering your plants or walking through a garden, just remember that there’s a whole conversation happening around you.
We might not hear it, but the plants are definitely talking.
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