Scientists have known for years that plants respond to sounds around them. For example, flowers make sweeter nectar (花蜜) to the sound of buzzing bees. But now scientists in Israel have shown that plants also seem to be doing some “talking”.
Professor Lilach Hadany and her team at Tel Aviv University set up microphones to record tomato and tobacco plants under different conditions. Their recordings revealed that the plants made ultrasonic sounds (超声波) .
It’s not clear how the plants make the sounds. One idea is that air bubbles (气泡) form inside the plant’s stem, and that these popping bubbles make a clicking sound. It’s also not clear if the plants are making the sounds on purpose. Sometimes people’s knees creak, too, but they’re not doing it on purpose.
But the plants are definitely making noise, and creating much more noise when they’re stressed than when they’re not.
In fact, the researchers trained an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system to identify the different kinds of clicking sounds. The system was able to tell the difference between plants that needed water and plants with cuts about 70% of the time.
The result suggests that researchers may one day be able to use a plant’s sounds to figure out when it is having trouble, and what trouble it is having. They hope that could be very helpful to farmers.
The new discovery raises many more questions. One important question is: Do plants make sounds to communicate with each other?
Other research has shown that plants do seem to communicate in some ways. Plants being attacked by insects send chemicals into the air. Soon, nearby plants that haven’t been attacked yet start to make other chemicals that don’t taste good to insects. It’s possible that the ultrasonic sounds could work in a similar way.
Another big question is: Is anything listening to the plants? Dr. Hadany points out that mice and moths, for example, depend on plants, and can hear ultrasonic frequencies. The clicks may tell these animals when a plant isn’t healthy, so they can avoid it.
The team’s research has already changed our ideas about plants. As Dr. Hadany says, “Even in a quiet field, there are actually sounds that we don’t hear, and those sounds carry information.”
【小题1】Why does the author mention flowers in Paragraph 1?| A．To prove plants can hear the sounds. | B．To show plants make ultrasonic sounds. |
| C．To make a comparison with other plants. | D．To arouse the readers’ interest in the text. |
| A．The plants convey information by touch. | B．The attacked plants make ultrasonic sounds. |
| C．The attacked plants send poor-taste chemicals. | D．The wind blows the odor of the attacked plants. |
| A．To prove plants can talk. | B．To make a new discovery. |
| C．To promote plants’ better growth. | D．To have more knowledge of plants. |
| A．Plants “Talk” | B．Amazing Plants |
| C．Ultrasonic “Dances” | D．Wonderful Sounds |
