Do plants scream?

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
It's possible that they feel something like pain and fear

As part of the study, the scientists put caterpillars on Arabidopsis thaliana, a small, cabbage-like plant, and then recorded the vibrations made by the caterpillar's chewing. They recorded these tiny vibrations using a special microphone that beams a laser off a reflective surface to see how fast the surface is moving.

They then played back these vibrations to a group of plants who weren't being eaten by caterpillars. A third plant was kept in silence as a control.

In the experiment, plants chewed on by caterpillars and those played the chomping sound released more mustard oil, a chemical that's meant to fend off pests, than the plants that had been exposed to silence.

Scientists already knew that plants could change their growth pattern in reaction to certain sounds, but this is the first time they saw a plant protecting itself from the sound of a predator's chewing.
 
The smell of fresh cut grass is in fact the grass screaming in terror (in chemical format) to alert the rest of the grass that there is danger.

The real question is: does the smell of fresh cut grass smell so good because of pastoralism and the association of it with happy healthy sheep/goats/cows etc. or is it just random chance?
 
Back
Top Bottom