Ohad Lewin-Epstein
When a plant is having a rough time, it cries out in pain. I don’t mean that metaphorically—it’s a documented phenomenon. Biologists at Tel-Aviv University have previously demonstrated that plants experiencing stressful conditions will emit ultrasonic sounds through the ground that humans can’t hear.
That same team of biologists has just unearthed a new revelation: Those ultrasonic rumblings aren’t just emitted through the ground, but through the air as well. And they’re detectable from more than a meter away.
“Even in a quiet field, there are actually sounds that we don’t hear, and those sounds carry information,” co-author Lilach Hadany, an evolutionary biologist at Tel Aviv University, said in a statement.