[HN Gopher] Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne a...
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Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative
Author : ecosystem
Score : 312 points
Date : 2023-04-01 01:39 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cell.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cell.com)
| fionic2 wrote:
| when a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear
| it... does it make a sound?
| rukuu001 wrote:
| I'm curious that this is surprising?
|
| 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?
| willcipriano wrote:
| We know basically nothing about the world around us.
| camgunz wrote:
| So true, this has become one of my mantras.
| ungamedplayer wrote:
| How do you mentally frame it. Like "ignorance is acceptable"
| or "we are limited beings"
|
| 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.
| klyrs wrote:
| you'll never run out of amazing things to learn
| camgunz wrote:
| Mostly that life is wondrous and infinite, and if you're
| miserable or angry there's probably something you can learn
| to help with it, and this probably also works on a species
| level too.
|
| It can also give perspective. "Argh my coworker reformatted
| all my multiline list comprehensions" can become "what if
| reincarnation is real but it works in reverse with humanity
| somewhere near the bottom and bees somewhere near the top".
| Etc.
| henearkr wrote:
| Wait before your hear the harrowing laments of the rocks cracking
| in the cold.
|
| /s
|
| No, more seriously, stop giving an emotional meaning to a
| _sound_.
| mejutoco wrote:
| I recommend Overstory for a nice Pulitzer-winning books about how
| plants are similar to us but on a longer timeframe. It is full of
| beautiful stories too.
| eternalban wrote:
| That's nothing. Dutch plants tweet:
|
| https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/dutch-tree-sends-tweets-ab...
| maartn wrote:
| This must be april fools???
| moffkalast wrote:
| Idk, does someone have a plant, some scissors, and a 60khz
| capable microphone on hand to confirm? This is a matter of
| utmost urgency!
| Pigalowda wrote:
| It's not quite clear yet how the plants make these sounds, but
| the scientists suspect it is a passive process linked to
| cavitation. This is when plants that are stressed pop air bubbles
| in their circulation system causing vibrations in the plant.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| A situation the plants evolve specifically to avoid and signal
| to every other organism in ear shot that the culling is coming
|
| Isn't that enough?
|
| My body bloats in a passive process after it stops functioning,
| I avoid that
| quonn wrote:
| > Isn't that enough?
|
| No, that is not enough.
| qbrass wrote:
| While your body would also make noises if someone cut your
| head off, it's not a process your body evolved to signal
| everything around it to run.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Its what would happen anyway because its a precursor to
| more undermining of self-preservation
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Maybe if the article said other plants could hear or react to
| the screams. What good would such a warning do for plants who
| cannot flee or fight back?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| That article didn't, there are others that suggest there
| are signals to stressors that nearby plants react to.
|
| 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.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| You can't fly away from a tiger or a bear, but a human
| screaming as they are eaten by that one night inspire you
| to run or hide from something you see as a predator. Your
| feet are not literally rooted in the ground. Also you
| have ears capable of hearing the noise created by another
| human.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| And how does that alter my point, further described in
| the observation you didnt mention
| ecosystem wrote:
| Sounds tuned to human range:
| https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/979177
| tboerstad wrote:
| Thank you. I don't know what I expected to hear, but it wasn't
| that
| withinboredom wrote:
| Vegans aren't going to have anything to eat now... /s
|
| In all seriousness, this is wild.
| [deleted]
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| [flagged]
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I don't think we're all that murderous at all unless we're
| subjected to acute, severe stresses and/or maladaptive
| processes (usually early in life). I genuinely care about the
| well being of other living things and would hate to be in a
| position where I felt murder was necessary. I know I'm not
| alone.
|
| Seeing how war affects soldiers, I suspect the experience of
| killing and witnessing death is typically very traumatic to
| humans. It appears that animal processing facilities also
| inflict trauma on many workers, so it isn't only killing
| humans that can harm us.
|
| We're very good at killing, but I don't think we innately
| like it or tend towards it outside of procuring food. Even
| then, not all of us eat animals.
|
| Look at the lengths we go to hide death and murder when we do
| it. From war to agricultural systems, we go to great lengths
| to pretend it's something it's not so we can stomach what
| we're doing or buying into. The closer we get to the
| individuals effected, the more reprehensible I think we tend
| to find it.
|
| If we were truly murderous I suspect we wouldn't behave in
| that way. I could be wrong -- I'm very biased.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I think our current culture is biased to feel weird about
| killing. Historically, killing was often a form of
| entertainment for the public, and a matter of course for
| getting the nutrients for life.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I agree that we're biased to feel weird about it. But I
| think that's for good reason. In a lot of modern
| cultures, the necessity of killing is less present all
| the time. In cultures or circumstances where it's still
| essential for survival, I'd say go for it; there's no
| sense in dying because Fred in Wisconsin feels good about
| eating lentils instead of beef, and you're worried about
| being immoral by killing a goat. There are still moments
| of necessity where two lives can compete for survival.
|
| We will all eventually be dust, but I believe there's
| good reason to strive for the pre-dust period of
| existence to involve as little killing as practicable.
|
| In situations where I can pick plants over animals I will
| every time. I have no real need to kill or pay for
| killing. It's an incredible luxury that hasn't been
| afforded to people until relatively recently in history
| though, and I don't expect others to follow suit when
| they're less fortunate or living with wildly different
| opportunities and resources.
|
| So, overall I think the bias makes sense. At the same
| time, I won't deny that killing to survive is a reality
| for many and will continue to be - I suspect you aren't
| immoral or depraved if your situation demands killing to
| live.
|
| But that's all my insular little take on things and I
| know many (most?) disagree!
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| In the past people weren't able to voice their concerns
| and demand better things. Violence as entertainment was
| used as a tool by the ruling classes as a way to enforce
| their power.
|
| The effects of the trauma of violence are clear and well
| studied. Just because something happened in the past
| doesn't mean we can assume it had true support from the
| people who had no choice.
|
| Maybe people in the future will say that the people today
| found it entertaining to pollute the world, while we know
| many of us find it upsetting and wish in vain for
| alternatives against the strong tide of the power system
| in place.
|
| Another thing to consider is the old taboo around left
| handedness. As the taboo lifted the actually recorded
| rate of left handedness increased dramatically! Turns out
| social systems can lead to people acting in ways that are
| personally uncomfortable for them rather than going
| against the tide.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| This sounds like the response of someone steeped in
| modern culture, safe from the influence of having to kill
| things as part of day-to-day life.
|
| What is missing from the discussion is likely (if I'm not
| projecting too much here... I feel this way about myself
| as well) that you have a relatively detached relationship
| from death compared to people in times past and are
| disconnected from the experience of what it is actually
| like to be steeped in such experience.
|
| I have no idea what it would be like to live in such a
| life, but to assume it's inherently bad is a prejudiced
| outlook based only on your own limited experience. If you
| were raised watching public executions every week, you
| might be singing a different tune, and casting doubt in
| the opposite direction.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| I'm not claiming that the opposite from the original
| claim was the truth, I'm doing the same as you and saying
| be careful not to project your current feelings onto a
| past that we can never truly know.
|
| No one can say the people of the past felt one way or
| not, that's my main point. The other point I'm adding on
| is that people are inherently varied in their mindsets
| and it's only very recently in history we've had such an
| equal opportunity to share our feelings and hope to have
| them heard.
|
| I would add one thing as well: In many societies there's
| been a great reverence given to animals and their
| slaughter ritualized or governed by cultural rules. To me
| this suggests at the very least that people have always
| had some sense of the gravity of their actions and felt a
| need to make sense of and tame their feelings by
| externalizing or controlling them.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Without modern agriculture + nutrition, I don't think you
| could survive without eating meat (if I'm wrong, feel free
| to ignore the rest of this). That means you have to murder
| an animal to live and don't really get a choice in the
| matter. This why we are inherently murderous. Sure, these
| days we pay other people to do it, but when you pick up a
| burger; that cow was murdered -- hopefully humanly.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Hmm. I don't agree that all killing is murder.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Certainly not. Some is merciful and - in the case of
| dignified deaths - by old and modern laws, totally
| consensual as well. Sometimes death is appropriate even
| if it's not what was hoped for.
|
| It's not an easy distinction to make by any means, but
| it's a distinction that humans have believed to exist for
| millennia at least.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| People can live without eating animals (at least without
| seeking them out; getting small animals in your food is
| practically inevitable). However you're right, it's very
| difficult and impractical without modern agriculture.
| Apart from a good understanding of macros and vitamin
| B12, there's not much else a vegan needs from modernity.
| B12 should be present in all foods too, but in modernity
| it's simply too clean to get enough without
| supplementing. Even livestock are supplemented with it in
| feed lots where they aren't exposed to much outdoor
| microbe-laden plant matter and water. I'm not sure how
| well a vegan would do if they just ate plants from a
| relatively "clean" field without washing the food too
| much; maybe they'd actually be just fine.
|
| Bizarrely enough, even meat eaters can be somewhat low in
| B12 in the USA. It's a vitamin that's generally not in
| excess in a lot of diets, omnivore or otherwise.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| this is the sub-conscious contra-positive of the news that many
| intelligent red meat eaters know and do not want to hear "You"
| group-not-me "must" getting-orders-or-else "eat" what is on
| everyone's mind most of the waking hours of life "now" no
| choices
|
| 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?
| akomtu wrote:
| What's wild about it? Plants shrink when drying up and that
| collapses tiny cavities in their stems. It's only surprising
| that this sound can be detected so easily.
| Euphorbium wrote:
| If you camp in spring near fast growing grasses or bushes,
| you can clearly hear them grow.
| krisoft wrote:
| How do you know what you are hearing is them "growing"
| instead of wind rustling them or insects moving around?
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| In my experience they have been distinct sounds of
| pressure and movement between plant fibres, in ways that
| the wind or insects wouldn't or couldn't cause in that
| setting.
|
| If you lay still on a warm, quiet, still day in spring in
| a field or meadow, you might hear a lot of sounds you
| otherwise haven't and wouldn't expect. There's a lot of
| activity. Sometimes plants will let some leaves or blades
| free after a seed husk finally breaks under their weight.
| It's just gravity and pressure at work, but you'll hear
| these things frequently.
|
| This sort of thing reminds me of learning to find
| mushrooms. I had no idea mushrooms are everywhere until I
| started looking. They occupy all kinds of spaces in
| various seasons, dependent on a rain, a species of tree,
| or a sudden warmth after a cool period. Once you see
| them, they're everywhere.
|
| Similarly, plants and their myriad processes kind of jump
| out at you once you observe them closely. Before then
| they may seem relatively inert.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's not a guess. It's simply a fact that you can hear
| some fast-growing plants growing. No need to personally
| investigate unless you want to.
|
| Rhubarb: https://soundcloud.com/rhubarb-rhubarb-
| rhubarb/a-mass-of-pop...
|
| Bamboo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HkhBxBZELk
|
| Corn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76xEkEXI2a4
| mcswell wrote:
| Maybe you can hear paint dry, too.
| twothamendment wrote:
| I've heard the buds on the end of a branch busting their
| way out of the dryer outer layer. It was calm. At first I
| thought bugs, but finally realized what it was. It was much
| harder to hear than beetles boring their way into a tree.
| steponlego wrote:
| A pig's squeals when it's slaughtered is merely air passing
| through the constricted trachea.
| steponlego wrote:
| Vegans are going to have to re-evaluate their life choices. It
| might be much more cruel to harvest a field of soybeans than it
| is to kill a cow.
| shlant wrote:
| this comment says more about your confirmation bias and your
| ability to understand the information in the article than it
| does about the life choices of vegans
| timeon wrote:
| > It might be much more cruel to harvest a field of soybeans
| than it is to kill a cow.
|
| 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.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Cavitation in a plant doesn't mean it's having a subjective
| experience much less one that I should care about more than,
| say, the experience of a dog being stepped on.
| debesyla wrote:
| 1) Veganism isn't solely about cruelty;
|
| 2) I find your debate that "structure/texture changing plant
| matter making sounds is the same as animal matter/brain
| feeling"... interesting.
| steponlego wrote:
| It's now well understood that plants communicate and can even
| have moods. Even algae. This wasn't even news decades ago.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Does this throw out the whole moral panic about animal welfare?
| If plants suffer too, isn't it wrong to eat them as well? Or
| there should be real focus in humane treatment and harvesting
| them?
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| > Does this throw out the whole moral panic about animal
| welfare?
|
| 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.
| TEP_KimIlSung wrote:
| [dead]
| timeon wrote:
| Not really. You are missing whole world there between your
| absolute poles.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _panic_
|
| None of those concerns are new. Jainism is at least three
| millennia old.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| It is much newer in many parts of the world.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Moral conclusions I don't agree with are panics.
| DuckFeathers wrote:
| Also, strict Jains are only supposed to eat anything other
| than fruit that has fallen from the tree, taking into account
| the suffering of plants as living beings.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| I refuse to believe this isn't a troll comment.
| shlant wrote:
| unfortunately, I have heard totally normal people on multiple
| occasions fall back to the "well don't plants feel pain too?"
| argument
| doubled112 wrote:
| Now we have to live like The Giving Tree was a documentary?
|
| Is this going to drive my food prices even higher?
| costco wrote:
| Interestingly L. Ron Hubbard was laughed at for saying tomatoes
| scream when
| [sliced](https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/06/16/meet-your-
| veget...). I don't know enough about this to know how important
| it is or whether it's actually some kind of signalling.
| mobb_solo wrote:
| "The Secret Life of Plants" -Tompkins & Bird (1973)
| pvaldes wrote:
| >"sounds are airborne"
|
| 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
| kaapipo wrote:
| So I could make a plant watering reminder system by listening to
| the ultrasound in theory
| scooperx wrote:
| "Scream" is a sensationalist word, it anthromorphizes plants. You
| might as well say you can hear them sing Chop Suey's lyrics when
| they get cut down: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit
| Father, into your hands Why have you forsaken me? In your eyes
| forsaken me In your thoughts forsaken me In your heart forsaken
| me, oh
| aix1 wrote:
| The story behind those lyrics:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P__qjVB9Tc
| crazygringo wrote:
| The start of the article is hilariously contradictory:
|
| > _They may be filling your house with deafening clicks..._
|
| > _These noises are at about the volume of a normal human
| conversation..._
| mdp2021 wrote:
| The joke there is that for living entities as apparently
| quiet as plants human conversation level noise may seem a
| fracas.
|
| Rephrased: "for the standards of a plant as we may have
| imagined it, those noises may seem deafening".
| petesergeant wrote:
| Interestingly enough, The Economist's April Fools joke is not
| dissimilar to this: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gene-editing-
| created-generati...
| AtomicOrbital wrote:
| Implication is that they can also listen to such screaming
| badrabbit wrote:
| Didn't the founder of scientology claim plants scream when they
| are in pain and even "invented" a machine to measure their pain?
| I wonder how they interpret this finding.
| DuckFeathers wrote:
| The Lex Fridman podcast[1] with Aaron Smith-Levin, a former
| scientology insider (who grew out of it), made me believe that
| Scientology has been overly vilified, most likely because it
| threatens power of specific people, just what the
| scientologists claim.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1lN9zkK_k0
| leobg wrote:
| So where is the device that I can buy and put next to my house
| plants so I'll hear when they are thirsty?
| yoavm wrote:
| They said you can use a simple $200 bat detector to record
| these sounds.
| moffkalast wrote:
| How about a $20 bat detector?
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Just probe for soil moisture if you are serious
| genr8 wrote:
| I learned about this on Joe Rogan a couple years ago "Joe Rogan:
| Plants Know They're Being Eaten & Feel Pain!"
| https://www.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/641t0b/researcher...
| Izkata wrote:
| There was an article I read like a decade ago about some research
| that when bugs eat a particular tree, the tree would react in two
| ways: Emit some sort of chemical that hurt or resisted the bug,
| and emit something (can't remember if it was sound or something
| pheremone-like) that caused nearby trees of the same species to
| emit the same chemical, allowing them to proactively protect
| themselves.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I've been saying this for years.
|
| Should probably be merged with this:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35396901
|
| Different links, but basically the same thing.
| afarviral wrote:
| My very unscientific take is the noises are the result of a
| mundane mechanical process that is a consequence of the plant not
| having enough water or loss of water due to cutting, which leads
| to some cavitation bubbles forming. So it may only be as
| interesting as saying that your water starts "screaming" when it
| is being boiled.
| hackerlight wrote:
| Makes sense, it's hard to see see an evolutionary purpose to
| this.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _This might be very helpful for agriculture. For instance,
| tomato plants emit sounds of stress before they started
| looking dehydrated_
|
| 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"_
| bmitc wrote:
| You could also describe a human having an appendage chopped off
| in the same "mundane" mechanical way: loss of fluids,
| mechanical damage to nerves sending electrical pulses, etc. To
| some external observer, it's "just" a purely physical process.
| I'm not sure it's a useful description or perspective.
|
| 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.
| eckza wrote:
| When you cut off a human's appendage, the screaming comes
| from a voice. The voice comes from a sort of...
| consciousness. Which while we haven't exactly nailed down
| what makes one up, we are reasonably certain that it involves
| a _nervous system_.
| bmitc wrote:
| Plants communicate distress using their own kind of nervous
| system: Model mustard plant uses the same signals as
| animals to relay distress
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/plants-
| communicate-d...
| geoelectric wrote:
| Making this absurd for a sec to make my point, I think
| they're just saying if the physical sound of an arm being
| cut off just happened to mimic a human voice crying out,
| that wouldn't make it a sign of consciousness like an
| actual "Ow!" from the speech center.
|
| There's a difference between a creature's higher level
| response to a stimulus and just stuff that happens as a
| direct physical consequence of the stimulus.
|
| It's the same deal as boiling live lobsters. They aren't
| actually screaming, even if you would be. That's steam
| escaping. What the plant sound actually is, no clue. But
| I think the lobster scenario is what was being suggested
| upthread.
| epgui wrote:
| Literally the only difference between the two scenarios
| are the amount of complexity of the systems involved. You
| can describe either one in purely mechanistic terms.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| It's still just physics and chemistry all the way down
| though. It's not clear that plants couldn't evolve
| something similar through a mechanism other than a nervous
| system.
| eckza wrote:
| Okay but - and I can't believe that I actually have to
| say this - it is pretty clear that they _haven't_.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Would love the new age types to get onto the idea that water
| screams.
| no_wizard wrote:
| There's already a bunch of new age types getting into the
| idea that water holds "emotional" values. IE, they claim that
| if you scream and have negative conversations at a glass of
| water, you can analyze the water and see changes to it that
| are negative, and doing the inverse (happy, positive
| conversations) makes the water "happier" and has positive
| changes.
|
| 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!
| mixologic wrote:
| Spooky ~~action~~ belief at a distance.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I thought that was homeopathy.
| kilianinbox wrote:
| The intriguing sound produced by my guitar can be quite
| revealing, particularly when it's out of tune. All physical
| objects have a resonant characteristic that conveys information.
| When an object, such as a sphere, undergoes a transformation, its
| resonance changes as well. Additionally, in systems with flowing
| components, specific flow rates can yield a wide range of
| patterns. Some might be chaotic, while others, like those arising
| from DNA replication, result in recognizable and recurring
| patterns.
|
| 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! ;)
| uuuguaii wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| There's also https://www.businessinsider.com/plants-shriek-with-
| high-pitc...
|
| (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35396901, but we merged
| that thread hither)
| stametseater wrote:
| The metal tin screams in pain when you bend it. Surely it is
| conscious..
| todd8 wrote:
| How about this claim: pieces of string when stressed emit sounds
| that are picked up by nearby strings. Should be investigate this
| claim? What does it mean that the world of string acts this way.
|
| 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.
| JUNGLEISMASSIVE wrote:
| Do strings grow on their own and sexually reproduce, though?
| TEP_KimIlSung wrote:
| [dead]
| jschveibinz wrote:
| Your comment rings true.
| manmal wrote:
| Do you mean resonance?
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_resonance
| Runeite51 wrote:
| When I used to live in a small room, one day I put my guitar
| kind of half-way into my closet by the corner of the room. A
| few mins later I yelled something (I forget what) and it was
| as though my guitar strummed the A string on its own. It
| freaked me out for a sec but then I started belting different
| notes, and as soon as I got back to a certain note the guitar
| would strum itself again!
| mcswell wrote:
| I am astounded that no one has mentioned "The Sound Machine" by
| Roald Dahl (1949), in which a scientist invents a machine that
| makes ultrasonic sounds audible to humans. He discovers that
| plants scream when cut. You can read it at
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1949/09/17/the-sound-mach...
| papandada wrote:
| I wonder if this is the source of a Jack Handey joke: "If trees
| could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?
| We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."
| aarondia wrote:
| This reminds me of an Upton Sinclair quote: "was one to
| believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whine this
| hog personality was precious. To whome these hog squeals and
| agonies had meaning?"
| mathstuf wrote:
| I think the BFG could also hear the screams of trees as they
| were being chopped down.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Sources online agree with you.
|
| > 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...
| Runeite51 wrote:
| That was a cool read. It took me on a long journey to find
| references to it... seems like there's actually some truth to
| it.
| pengaru wrote:
| > 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."
| _Microft wrote:
| Google says that this is part of the lyrics of "
| _Disgustipated_ " by Tool.
| svara wrote:
| Informative here meaning that you can deduce something about a
| plant's condition from faint sounds emitted by it. It's not
| implying that the plants use those sounds for the purpose of
| transmitting information. From the article:
|
| "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.
| entwife wrote:
| The sounds emitted by the plants are between 20 and 80 kHz,
| which is within the auditory range of some mammal, such as
| mice. Although the normal range of hearing in humans is said to
| be 100 Hz to 20 kHz, when I was a grad student in my early 20s
| I could detect sounds up to 28 kHz in the sound booth.
|
| I wonder whether there are people who can hear these sounds,
| even faintly.
| layer8 wrote:
| From the introduction:
|
| > 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.
| calibas wrote:
| They're saying it's in the realm of possibilities, plants *may*
| be communicating via sound, and this is in the context of a
| study that shows plants are making noises that can be used to
| convey information.
|
| 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.
| erie wrote:
| [flagged]
| nequo wrote:
| The article is about ultrasonic sounds though. And the
| stresses they describe were not that they tapped on them.
| meepmorp wrote:
| This is great, thanks for the summary!
| sarusso wrote:
| But you could use ultrasound sensors to monitor plants in
| agricolture... maybe this is why it got published in such a
| high impact factor journal.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Informative here meaning that you can deduce something about
| a plant's condition from faint sounds emitted by it. It's not
| implying that the plants use those sounds for the purpose of
| transmitting information.
|
| 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.
| j16sdiz wrote:
| In algculture setting, it is far easier to record sound than
| testing for chemical.
| canadiantim wrote:
| If the signal is being sent, you can be pretty sure that due to
| the intrinsic efficiency-maximization that biological systems
| perform then most likely the mechanism for detecting and acting
| upon it has been evolved by other organisms, especially for
| something as fitness-critical as stress.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| I like that line of thinking. But I still fail at giving a
| good explanation of that concept. Maybe it's intuitive for me
| due to having learned about cellular automata during my
| youth. I know I'm entering esoteric and new age territory but
| something tells me this can even be applied to phenomena like
| quantum entanglement. My idea is that if there is an
| information receivable and possibly even emittable by a
| biological system then that system will through evolutionary
| pressure begin to incorporate this transmission in a way that
| improves fitness. Telepathy maybe even. That's also why I
| don't "believe" anymore in this compartmentalization of the
| human body into separate organs. Tissue can isolate an organ
| to some extent but even then there will be hormonal or
| mechanic exchange. Example would be relevance of belly
| breathing for intestinal function. At the extreme we reach
| this sense of connectedness between all or most or some
| living beings. It just appears to me that this would make
| sense.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| The rule of thumb in evolutionary biology is if it has a
| cost and lasts through evolutionary time, it is beneficial.
| Because otherwise a similar organism that doesn't waste
| that time/energy on the useless thing/behavior will
| outcompete. Here's some odd and obvious examples.
|
| 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.
| [deleted]
| jenadine wrote:
| The argument is flawed. You defend. "if it has a cost and
| lasts through evolutionary time, it is beneficial."
|
| But to conclude your conclusion, you must also show that:
|
| - emitting noise has cost (fairly believable)
|
| - and that something listening to it is the only way to
| make it beneficial, which is far from obvious. (Could
| just be a way to dissipate energy, or to send signal
| within the plant, or to get rid of some chemicals, or
| many other beneficial things that doesn't involve
| something listening)
| dmn322 wrote:
| I mostly agree with your point however IMO the psychopath
| thing is not a great example because it could be
| explained as the incomplete or nonexistent development of
| something that is complex that is beneficial. I think the
| error is that we can't necessarily know what the cost
| was. And the benefit doesnt necessarily have to be that
| big relative to the cost. I mean I'm replying to you and
| that me costs something, and what's the benefit?
|
| While the sounds don't make themselves, they could be a
| side effect of something else... instabilities in the
| structural tissue, the plant straining to increase the
| movement internal fluids... who knows?
|
| That said, I personally think there is communication
| between plants, or that at the very least it's something
| like trying to mimic predator insect sounds. But could be
| that the vibrations themselves help move fluids around
| (as opposed to being a byproduct of something else that
| does)
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| This isn't "my point," this is how the field of
| evolutionary biologists look at traits. If what I said
| was false it would mean there's no such thing as natural
| selection. We may not understand how a trait is
| beneficial, and we may be incorrect about why a trait is
| beneficial, but if it has a cost and lasts through
| evolutionary time then by definition it has a benefit.
|
| >it could be explained as the incomplete or nonexistent
| development of something that is complex that is
| beneficial.
|
| If it has a cost but doesn't have a benefit right now,
| it's going to get weeded out via natural selection in
| favor of variants of the organism that are not wasting
| the time and resources on that trait.
| geoelectric wrote:
| Only applies to genetic traits though. If psychopathy,
| for example, turned out to be epigenetic, environmental,
| or entirely psychological, it would potentially defy that
| pattern.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| It doesn't only apply to genetic traits, it also applies
| to memes which also evolve and would cover your concerns.
| [deleted]
| TEP_KimIlSung wrote:
| Unempathic people can make hard decisions; Such as
| choosing between spending a hospital budget on fuel for
| the generators, building upkeep, restocking, and employee
| wages -v.s. the life of one child. A lot of people can't
| make such a decision.
|
| I wouldn't want such people unchecked though.
| suoduandao2 wrote:
| there's a line of thinking that it's strange how many of
| our leaders are psychopaths. But for all we know, it's
| strange how few of our leaders are psychopaths relative
| to other cultures throughout history.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| By a trait being "beneficial" you mean that it prolongs
| the existence of some gene specifically, right? My
| understanding of evolution is that traits aren't
| necessarily beneficial to those who posses it in the
| colloquial sense. For example, animals that perish due to
| reproduction.
|
| Also, isn't saying a trait exists so it must be
| beneficial a bit of an over simplification? Couldn't a
| relatively useless trait hypothetically exist due to
| genes that are also related to some other relatively
| useful trait? It seems like a stretch to say any lasting
| trait must be beneficial, unless you can isolate it from
| other traits on the genetic level or otherwise through
| analysis. Traits can also cease being beneficial as we
| can see from the countless species that have gone
| extinct.
|
| Sorry if this seems like I'm ranting, but I just need
| more convincing that this rule of thumb makes sense, and
| would appreciate being pointed in the right direction if
| I'm off-base.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Yes, beneficial refers to those genes continuing on into
| the future.
|
| The operative descriptive word describing those "useless
| traits" is cost. If nothing else, they have a cost of the
| energy and resources required to produce the relevant
| cells or whatever. Another organism that does not waste
| that energy and resources will out-compete the one
| building the useless trait. Natural selection will make
| it go away.
| Runeite51 wrote:
| Though that might just be the case for most things, I
| don't think it would be fair to say that for all things.
| Two traits could develop in conjunction with another, and
| trait 1 gives an advantage, while trait 2 is a
| disadvantage. The most in-your-face example I think is
| the stereotype of nerds and glasses. In short, a good
| enough trait could get you laid and fed even though you
| have a crappy trait that came with it.
|
| edit: alternatively, a bad enough trait could completely
| derail the development of a good train. Maybe dolphins
| born with 200iq brains develop some other kind of bad
| trait as a result of the same mutation that doesn't allow
| for the 200iq trait to permeate.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| The poor eyesight you're referring to comes with age,
| generally after the primary ages of procreation. That's
| why, on an evolutionary timescale, there wasn't much
| benefit to weeding out the need for glasses. Maybe into
| the future we will see that. Conditions which cause poor
| eyesight from birth get weeded out.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| The characteristic one for this in humans is sickle cell
| anemia. It really sucks for the people who have it but it
| sucks less than malaria, so it's persisted in the gene
| pool... in regions with endemic malaria.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| That assumes that natural selection is a perfect process,
| and that we are at some "end" of it. In truth, the cost
| of generating useless noise could be small enough that it
| just doesn't matter and it hangs around. Maybe it will
| disappear in a few more billion years.
|
| Any organism we see today may very well have unnecessary
| traits that evolution is in the process of removing.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| You put that assumption in, not me.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > 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.
|
| It has a benefit to individuals. A benefit to the
| community is not necessary.
|
| > Likely it's for war/fighting/hunting.
|
| This is a non sequitur.
|
| Nothing is all cost and no benefit, and nothing is all
| benefit and no cost either. You don't see people arguing
| that vulnerability to cuckoos is beneficial to the birds
| they parasitize. The benefit is real (you don't need to
| bother recognizing your offspring, because recognizing
| your nest is sufficient) but the cost is so much larger
| (your children all die) that it's obvious the birds would
| be better off with the ability to recognize their own
| young (and/or eggs). They don't have that ability...
| _yet_.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I'm not sure why you can assume that without any direct
| evidence.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| It's known that plants respond to chemical cues sent by
| another plant that has just been eaten or lawnmowed.
|
| 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.
| setr wrote:
| Like the xkcd about emacs control key spiking cpu[0], I
| think its a generally safe assumption that if a behavior
| exists consistently, then somebody likely depends on it for
| their workflow
|
| [0] https://xkcd.com/1172/
| LegitShady wrote:
| is argument ad xkcd an official logical fallacy yet?
| haswell wrote:
| Life is an infinite unfolding of undefinably rich and
| interconnected phenomena, and we only have labels for a
| small subset of phenomena.
|
| 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.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > As a thought experiment, reverse the question: how
| could we assume that there aren't interconnected
| phenomena after discovering evidence that this phenomena
| exists?
|
| The opposite of assuming a thing without direct evidence
| isn't to assume the negation of that thing without direct
| evidence. They're two examples of the same mistake.
| haswell wrote:
| That's not quite what I'm getting at here. I'm not
| claiming that something _specific_ exists without
| evidence, or making any claims about some particular
| phenomena that I believe exists and must do <x>.
|
| Rather I'm pointing out that the existence of this
| phenomena _is_ a form of evidence that opens the door to
| interrelated phenomena. And based on our understanding of
| the laws of nature, we can be certain that there is at
| minimum, some interrelation. Whether that interrelation
| is interesting or worth labeling as some unique phenomena
| to humans is what cannot be determined without further
| discovery /evidence.
|
| I'd agree with your comment if the described phenomena
| itself was just speculation, but that's not the case
| here.
| wruza wrote:
| Sometimes signal is just there regardless.
|
| 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.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| >> (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.
|
| I don't think it's saying that _at all_
| rightbyte wrote:
| > In other words, dry wood cracks.
|
| How dare you translate academic technobabble to common
| tongue?
| Pompidou wrote:
| Maybe this bruise evolved with our social behaviour : most
| animals skin don't show this, or for higher stress. The
| bruise is very important in a social envirronment and is a
| good optimisation for mutual Care.
| shredprez wrote:
| The person you're responding to is talking about _other_
| organisms (ie not the tree), which seems compatible with
| your observation here.
|
| 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.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Random guess: woodpeckers might, as for them this may be
| a way to detect which trees offer most food for least
| effort.
|
| Ironically, something I didn't realize until now, and
| what also confirms the original point: apparently[0] the
| drumming itself turned into form of _communication_ for
| woodpeckers.
|
| --
|
| [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodpecker#Drumming
| q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote:
| It's a nice thought. But many _humans_ aren 't able to do
| that with each other, so it seems like a high bar for a
| potato.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _many humans aren 't able to do that with each other_
|
| Many doesn't disprove that some do. And it need not be
| plants; if symbiotic insects pick up on the cue, that's
| still interesting.
| passterby wrote:
| potatos have more genes that you
| tpoacher wrote:
| This just means that the potato dna-source-code devs were
| being evaluated by management against a "kLOC" metric.
| tpoacher wrote:
| You reminded me one of my favourite quotes:
|
| "There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of
| the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists"
|
| ~ Quote by a forest ranger at Yosemite National Park, on
| why it is hard to design the perfect garbage bin to keep
| bears from breaking into it.
| alwaysbeconsing wrote:
| Not entirely. Efficiency maximization can also result in a
| state where a feature is interesting to us but neutral, or
| just not harmful enough to be worth the energy to change.
| Remember that the watchmaker is _completely_ blind.
| atahanacar wrote:
| >has been evolved by other organisms
|
| Like, a human?
| mclide wrote:
| By now, there is at least one other organism that can detect
| and act upon the signal. If farmers applies knowledge about
| this signal to improve their yields, plants may be selected
| for their ability to emit sounds under stress.
| yread wrote:
| There is some reserach that trees already communicate
| indirectly via a network of fungi around their roots using
| sugars so it's not that far fetched
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-
| whispering...
| homarp wrote:
| add to that https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-
| trees-support-... 'Do Trees Really Support Each Other
| through a Network of Fungi'
| canadiantim wrote:
| Interesting. Seems like the authors main contention is
| with the popularization of the concept that trees might
| be cooperating with each other instead of hyper competing
| as we historicallly assume via just natural selection
| pressures.
|
| I'm sympathetic to their argument that we need to be
| careful how far we take the cooperation argument but I
| think they're also throwing out the baby with the bath
| water. These authors are highly focused on showing the
| validity of the opposite point of view and so have
| conducted a meta analysis of the literature that is very,
| I would say, biased towards the exclusion of studies that
| show communication and transfers of chemicals between
| trees using mycorrhizal networks. I still find their meta
| analysis interesting but would caution people to also
| take their cutting down of the idea of transfers between
| plants using mycorrhizal networks with large grains of
| salt. They, as researchers, are also incentivized to kind
| of go a bit too far the other way from what they were
| arguing against (transfers between plants using
| mycorrhizal networks)
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| Conversely, perhaps humans evolved to _not_ hear plants.
| philipov wrote:
| If you break a branch, the sound of it breaking informs you
| that you have broken a branch.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Like breaking bones and speech are both informative sounds
| emitted by a human from which you can learn something about
| that human condition. The difference between those sounds is
| more subtle than might appear at first
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| It also informs other animals that a large creature may be
| passing by.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| If a branch falls in the forest and there is no-one there to
| hear it, does it make a sound?
|
| 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"
| philipov wrote:
| "Observer" is the most unfortunate word physicists could
| have chosen, though. It gets people all confused about
| observation mistakenly having something to do with thinking
| or perception. "Interacter" would have been a more accurate
| term, but it doesn't sound as sexy.
|
| To wit, yes, the tree makes a sound because _the tree_ is
| there to hear it.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Well yes IF it is true that trees can hear, which is what
| these new experiments give some credence to but don't
| prove conclusively
| blueridge wrote:
| If a tree falls in the forest, all the other trees are
| there to hear it.
| TEP_KimIlSung wrote:
| [dead]
| signa11 wrote:
| in this regard, i am always reminded of pioneering (in true sense
| of that word) work of jagdish-chandra-bose
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose).
|
| it truly is _fascinating_ !
| noisy_boy wrote:
| He was also one of the earliest Bengali science fiction
| writers[0] having published a story in 1896[1].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_science_fiction
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose#Science_...
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