6 ms·

Plants Do 'Scream'. We've Simply Never Heard It Until Now

35 points by talonx 3y ago

gnabgib 3y ago
Paper from 3 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39900800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39900800
thisislife2 3y ago
Didn't Jagadish Chandra Bose prove this a 100+ years ago? > The more responses Bose got from his plants, the more encouraged he became, and the more detailed his efforts became. Bose discovered that an electric death spasm occurs in plants when they die ... Bose calculated that a half-pea, for instance, could discharge up to half a volt. Thus, if 500 pairs of boiling half-peas were arranged in series, the electric pressure would be 500 volts, enough to electrocute unsuspecting victims. The average cook does not know the danger she runs in preparing peas, Bose wrote. “It is fortunate for her that the peas are not arranged in series!” > ... His 1902 paper “Responses in the Living and Non-Living” contains a whole chapter comparing the electrical impulse response of frog, lizard, and tortoise skins to the skins of tomatoes and grapes. He found little difference. Bose would write that plants grew more quickly when exposed to nice music and gentle whispers, and poorly when exposed to harsh music and loud speech. > ... Yet, it is not surprising to learn that Bose — whose scientific inventions and work in radio waves were highly esteemed — struggled to gain proper respect in Western scientific circles for his work in plant biophysics. > ... Bose believed in the fundamental unity of all life, the fundamental unity of everything — “a uniform and continuous march of law.” But it wasn’t just a belief. Bose had scientific proof ... When he talked about the great connectedness of life, he wasn’t kidding around. Bose was also the first scientist to study inorganic matter in the same way a biologist examines a muscle or a nerve. Bose performed his plant experiments on rocks and metals, too. He found that, just like plants, the “non-living” responded when subjected to mechanical, thermal, and electrical stimuli. Even rocks and metals became numbed by cold, shocked by electrical currents, stupefied by anesthetics. He once invited Sir Michael Foster, a veteran physiologist at Cambridge, to witness the electrical response of a poisoned piece of tin (as written by Patrick Geddes): > “Come now, Bose, (said Foster) what is the novelty in this curve? We have known it for at least the last half-century.” > “What do you think it is?” asked Bose. > “Why, a curve of muscle response, of course.” > “Pardon me; it is the response of metallic tin.” > “What!” said Foster, jumping up. “Tin! Did you say tin?” > If he were just a biologist, maybe Bose would have felt more constrained by the conventions of the field: What biologist would think of poisoning a piece of tin? Source: https://ecologise.in/2018/11/13/j-c-bose-response-living-non-living-1902/ https://ecologise.in/2018/11/13/j-c-bose-response-living-non...
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago
  > His 1902 paper “Responses in the Living and Non-Living” contains a whole chapter comparing the electrical impulse response of frog, lizard, and tortoise skins to the skins of tomatoes and grapes. He found little difference. What mentioned later is that in that paper he also found little differences to the electrical impulses of metals (namely tin) with his 1902 methods and galvanometers. Surely this does not mean he proved that metals scream when twisted ? The paper is freely available in project Gutenberg by the way. It's interesting.
  - scotty79 3y ago
    > Surely this does not mean he proved that metals scream when twisted ? Weeell... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_cry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_cry
    - 4gotunameagain 3y ago
      haha touché. Many things crackle while meddled with, but I think the distinction between screaming is important here
  - thisislife2 3y ago
    > Surely this does not mean he proved that metals scream when twisted ? Well, the tin responded to a stimuli ... now how do we interpret that is the question?
    - 4gotunameagain 3y ago
      It is pretty simple. Mechanical interlocking and interference can cause pressure waves. Clap your hands together. Your palms responded to stimulus and made a sound. Did they scream ?
beltaloada 3y ago
Roald Dahl also mused on this in his 1982 children's novel The BFG: 'I can hear plants and trees.' 'Do they talk?' Sophie asked. 'They is not exactly talking,' the BFG said. 'But they is making noises. For instance, if I come along and I is picking a lovely flower, if I is twisting the stem of the flower till it breaks, then the plant is screaming. I can hear it screaming and screaming very clear.' 'You don't mean it!' Sophie cried. 'How awful!' 'It is screaming just like you would be screaming if someone was twisting your arm right off.' 'Is that really true?' Sophie asked. 'You think I is swizzfiggling you?' 'It is rather hard to believe.' 'Then I is stopping right here,' said the BFG sharply. 'I is not wishing to be called a fibster.'
- euroderf 3y ago
  There is also a sci-fi short story with the same idea, from the 1950s IIRC, but... the story's name escapes me ATM.

35 points by talonx 3y ago

Paper from 3 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39900800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39900800

Didn't Jagadish Chandra Bose prove this a 100+ years ago? > The more responses Bose got from his plants, the more encouraged he became, and the more detailed his efforts became. Bose discovered that an electric death spasm occurs in plants when they die ... Bose calculated that a half-pea, for instance, could discharge up to half a volt. Thus, if 500 pairs of boiling half-peas were arranged in series, the electric pressure would be 500 volts, enough to electrocute unsuspecting victims. The average cook does not know the danger she runs in preparing peas, Bose wrote. “It is fortunate for her that the peas are not arranged in series!” > ... His 1902 paper “Responses in the Living and Non-Living” contains a whole chapter comparing the electrical impulse response of frog, lizard, and tortoise skins to the skins of tomatoes and grapes. He found little difference. Bose would write that plants grew more quickly when exposed to nice music and gentle whispers, and poorly when exposed to harsh music and loud speech. > ... Yet, it is not surprising to learn that Bose — whose scientific inventions and work in radio waves were highly esteemed — struggled to gain proper respect in Western scientific circles for his work in plant biophysics. > ... Bose believed in the fundamental unity of all life, the fundamental unity of everything — “a uniform and continuous march of law.” But it wasn’t just a belief. Bose had scientific proof ... When he talked about the great connectedness of life, he wasn’t kidding around. Bose was also the first scientist to study inorganic matter in the same way a biologist examines a muscle or a nerve. Bose performed his plant experiments on rocks and metals, too. He found that, just like plants, the “non-living” responded when subjected to mechanical, thermal, and electrical stimuli. Even rocks and metals became numbed by cold, shocked by electrical currents, stupefied by anesthetics. He once invited Sir Michael Foster, a veteran physiologist at Cambridge, to witness the electrical response of a poisoned piece of tin (as written by Patrick Geddes): > “Come now, Bose, (said Foster) what is the novelty in this curve? We have known it for at least the last half-century.” > “What do you think it is?” asked Bose. > “Why, a curve of muscle response, of course.” > “Pardon me; it is the response of metallic tin.” > “What!” said Foster, jumping up. “Tin! Did you say tin?” > If he were just a biologist, maybe Bose would have felt more constrained by the conventions of the field: What biologist would think of poisoning a piece of tin? Source: https://ecologise.in/2018/11/13/j-c-bose-response-living-non-living-1902/ https://ecologise.in/2018/11/13/j-c-bose-response-living-non...

4gotunameagain 3y ago
> His 1902 paper “Responses in the Living and Non-Living” contains a whole chapter comparing the electrical impulse response of frog, lizard, and tortoise skins to the skins of tomatoes and grapes. He found little difference. What mentioned later is that in that paper he also found little differences to the electrical impulses of metals (namely tin) with his 1902 methods and galvanometers. Surely this does not mean he proved that metals scream when twisted ? The paper is freely available in project Gutenberg by the way. It's interesting.
- scotty79 3y ago
  > Surely this does not mean he proved that metals scream when twisted ? Weeell... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_cry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_cry
  - 4gotunameagain 3y ago
    haha touché. Many things crackle while meddled with, but I think the distinction between screaming is important here
- thisislife2 3y ago
  > Surely this does not mean he proved that metals scream when twisted ? Well, the tin responded to a stimuli ... now how do we interpret that is the question?
  - 4gotunameagain 3y ago
    It is pretty simple. Mechanical interlocking and interference can cause pressure waves. Clap your hands together. Your palms responded to stimulus and made a sound. Did they scream ?

beltaloada 3y ago

Roald Dahl also mused on this in his 1982 children's novel The BFG: 'I can hear plants and trees.' 'Do they talk?' Sophie asked. 'They is not exactly talking,' the BFG said. 'But they is making noises. For instance, if I come along and I is picking a lovely flower, if I is twisting the stem of the flower till it breaks, then the plant is screaming. I can hear it screaming and screaming very clear.' 'You don't mean it!' Sophie cried. 'How awful!' 'It is screaming just like you would be screaming if someone was twisting your arm right off.' 'Is that really true?' Sophie asked. 'You think I is swizzfiggling you?' 'It is rather hard to believe.' 'Then I is stopping right here,' said the BFG sharply. 'I is not wishing to be called a fibster.'

euroderf 3y ago
There is also a sci-fi short story with the same idea, from the 1950s IIRC, but... the story's name escapes me ATM.