Next time you find yourself tending to your flower garden, you may want to stay quiet.The flowers are listening.

Israeli scientists discovered that the plants hear bees approaching and attempt to lure them in with sweeter nectar (花蜜)．In several experiments, they found that playing audio recordings of buzzing bees around certain flowers will cause the sugar concentration in the nectar to rise by about 20% in less than five minutes.Such a rapid reaction by plants to sound had never previously been reported.Just to make a comparison, the researchers also tried a higher frequency noise—like that made by a mosquito or a bat—and the flowers did not respond.

The authors pointed out that the behavior is actually in line with the natural order of things, considering that a plant’s ability to sense its environment and respond to it is critical for its survival.So, it seems that plants have some sort of consciousness.

This is not the first time that plants have reacted to the sound around them.In a 2009 study, the researchers found that women’s voices help make plants grow faster.In that experiment, tomato plants were found to grow two inches taller when they were tended to by a female gardener.

What if we told you that a potato chip bag left on the floor of a break room could listen in on office gossip?As people were talking around the potato chip bag, they were sending tiny sound vibrations (震动) into the air.Those vibrations then hit lifeless objects around the room.If you had a camera that was zoomed in on one of those objects extremely closely, in theory, you could actually see the object move along with the vibrations.You could then feed that video into a computer program that could translate the vibrations and you could play back the audio of the conversation that just took place.

So the next time you’re at the botanical garden or in a grocery aisle, be careful what you say.Someone—or something—might be listening.

【小题1】Which of the following best explains “lure” in Paragraph 2?

A．Shut.	B．Attract.
C．Trap.	D．Lead.

【小题2】What is vital for plants to survive?

A．The soil they depend on to grow.

B．The audio recordings played to them.

C．The identification to the sound frequency.

D．The power to sense and react to the environment.

【小题3】What can speed up the growth of plants?

A．The women’s voice.

B．The strength of the vibration.

C．The species of the young plant.

D．The number of the music played.

【小题4】What is the main idea of the text?

A．The frequency of vibrations determines plants’ growth.

B．Sound vibrations can be processed into audio.

C．Buzzing bees can increase the production of nectar.

D．Plants or lifeless objects may have the ability to listen.