A new study has revealed that while you may not be able to hear plants, they could very well be speaking, especially on a bad day when they are stressed. Their sound has finally been heard.
Scientists have for the first time recorded and analyzed sounds distinctly emitted by plants (Getty images)
By India Today Science Desk: Spring is here! And it's time to see those plants in your balcony bloom with fresh new flowers. But there is more to those plants than just a seasonal life cycle. Apart from growing and blooming they can speak too.
A new study has revealed that while you may not be able to hear them, they could very well be speaking, especially on a bad day when they are stressed, but not for long, their sound has finally been heard.
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Researchers at Israel’s Tel Aviv University have for the first time recorded and analyzed sounds distinctly emitted by plants that click-like. These sounds resemble those of popping of popcorn, and are emitted at a volume similar to human speech, but at high frequencies, beyond the hearing range of the human ear.
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The study published in journal Cell states that stressed plants emit airborne sounds that can be recorded from a distance and classified. “We recorded ultrasonic sounds emitted by tomato and tobacco plants inside an acoustic chamber, and in a greenhouse, while monitoring the plant’s physiological parameters,” researchers said in the paper.
While the study focussed on tomato and tobacco plants, wheat, corn, cactus and henbit were also recorded. The plants were subjected to different conditions before the recording began. Some plants had not been watered for five days, in some the stem had been cut, and some were untouched.
The team placed plants in an acoustic box in a quiet, isolated basement with no background noise and set up ultrasonic microphones recording sounds at frequencies of 20-250 kilohertz. It is to be noted that the maximum frequency detected by a human adult is about 16 kilohertz.
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"Our recordings indicated that the plants in our experiment emitted sounds at frequencies of 40-80 kilohertz. Unstressed plants emitted less than one sound per hour, on average, while the stressed plants – both dehydrated and injured – emitted dozens of sounds every hour,” Prof. Lilach Hadany from the School of Plant Sciences and Food Security at The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, said in a statement.
The team analysed the recording using AI, which learned how to distinguish between different plants and different types of sounds, and were ultimately able to identify the plant and determine the type and level of stress from the recordings.
“In this study we resolved a very old scientific controversy: we proved that plants do emit sounds! Our findings suggest that the world around us is full of plant sounds, and that these sounds contain information – for example about water scarcity or injury,” Professor Hadany added.
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April 01, 2023 at 10:56AM
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