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Plants Scream??


Althalus

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TREAD softly in the garden and pluck that rose with care: flowers cry when cut, cucumbers squeal and even healthy fruit gurgles according to new acoustic research on the stressful life of plants.

The findings, released by the Institute for Applied Physics at the University of Bonn, could have important implications for farmers since, with the proper eavesdropping device, one can now distinguish between healthy and sick vegetables. Talking to plants, it seems, is not as rewarding as listening to them.

The Bonn scientists have developed laser-driven microphones that pick up sounds inaccessible to the human ear. When a leaf or a stem is sliced, the plant signals pain (or perhaps merely dismay) by releasing the gas ethylene over its entire surface.

Doctor Frank Kühnemann of Bonn University has been trapping the ethylene in a bell jar. The gas molecules are later bombarded with calibrated laser beams, which makes them vibrate. This produces a soundwave picked up by the microphones. “The more a plant is subjected to stress, the louder the signal we get on our microphone,” he said.

The Bonn scientists have tested a range of plants, always in rooms with controlled temperatures and simulated natural light. But they were most surprised by the reaction of the cucumber. The vegetable appeared to be in good shape, yet according to the acoustic measurements it was virtually shouting with agony.

A closer study showed that it had developed mildew, yet the symptoms were not visible. This finding is likely to make an impact on agriculture. “We can detect an infection the day after it has set in,” said Dr Kühnemann’s colleague Ralph Gaebler. “Farmers, looking at their plant in the field, have to wait eight or nine days until the mildew spots have visibly broken out before they notice the problem,” he said in an interview with Deutsche Welle radio station.

By eavesdropping on plants it should be possible to develop an early warning system to detect pests and disease. Knowing the stress level of fruit and vegetables can also be an aid in efficient storing and transporting. Acoustical evidence demonstrates that apples emit higher levels of ethylene, which causes neighbouring plants to wilt. As a result, the scientists urged fruit producers to store apples separately.

When ripe fruit is packed with unripe, a substantial amount of fruit often ends up rotting even when the shipments are separated by type. The scientists in Bonn have solved this mystery: differences in ripeness are often invisible, but can be detected acoustically in the form of ethylene. It should therefore be sufficient to measure fruit with laser microphones to separate it into batches of appropriate ripeness before loading it on to ships and trucks.

Wolfgang Praetorius, managing director of the German fruit importing company Fruchthansa, agreed. “If the relative ripeness of fruit can be worked out beforehand, it can be intelligently separated. Then we would know which batches to ship together and how long they would stay fresh.”

But the Bonn University team believes plants do more than chatter about aches and pains as if passing time in a doctor’s waiting room. The team also thinks plants warn each other about approaching danger. The “alarm signal” is a chemical message transmitted between individual plants: this too can be measured by the new equipment.

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  • 1 month later...
 

thats not all. plants can also take a liking to a person. tests have also shown, that when a person, say a gardener enters a room of plants that he/she has been taking care of the stress level of the plants reduces. but if someone else were to enter the room that is always breaking off peices of the plant, the stress increases.

:s06

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     Great find,  AL!!   I remember the post telling how they were able to get music from plants,  but this new finding will help in so many ways!!   :s1

      Must remember to keep my apples away from my peaches!   ;D

     By the way,  welcome to the board, BOGS!   :st

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  • 1 month later...

It all made sense once I read the article. Ethylene is also used to mature fruits and veggies. So if a plant stem or leaf is cut off or subjected to stress it reacts by emitting ethylene to mature or heal its 'wound'  :st

See ya Folks

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This whole thing about plants feeling stress and all is very new for me. So basically your saying if I bite into an apple or any fruit or veggie will it still emit a stress signal? Or is it only when I rip it off a tree?  ???

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  • 1 year later...

GAHHH!!! Just give me more moral issues.. what exactly am I supposed to eat if plants feel pain to? GAHHHHH... rofl...

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Kind of funny that someone wouldn't eat meat because it's cruel, but I suppose if plants feel pain, and cry, and can take likings to people, that eating vegetables is not cruel. Kind of hypocritical, so, I think that you guys need to think about it.

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Kind of funny that someone wouldn't eat meat because it's cruel, but I suppose if plants feel pain, and cry, and can take likings to people, that eating vegetables is not cruel. Kind of hypocritical, so, I think that you guys need to think about it.

Im not quite sure what your trying to say... umm I Dont eat meat

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I guess the only thing we can eat is fruits, since fruits ARE supposed to be seperated from a plant.....

A pretty dismal prospect....

But perhaps we will stop having so much FAT people here in the US....

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I guess the only thing we can eat is fruits, since fruits ARE supposed to be seperated from a plant.....

A pretty dismal prospect....

But perhaps we will stop having so much FAT people here in the US....

most people in the us eat meat.. and it has been known for.. well About forever that Animals could feel.. do you really expect them to stop eating plants for that reason?

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Moderators can be vegetarians too, you know. devil.gif

Stay on topic please. No bashing of my brethren.

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now vegetarians will have to die out:)

grin2.gif thats sounds about as smart as bushes plan to outlaw gay marriage so that they cant "Breed" ... I think the mans nut laugh.gif

Really though..what if my poor food is really alive, I dont know how I would survive on nothing but Fruit dontgetit.gif Its hard enough to avoid meat.

Edited by Student&Alive
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I suppose that that is a useful tool/system. (find a disease/virus before it spreads to the rest) Don't stop eating plants and meat just because you feel sympathy for them! Who would feel sympathy for you while you were suffering from starvation? wacko.gif

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Student&Alive Posted on May 7 2004, 01:06 AM : thats sounds about as smart as bushes plan to outlaw gay marriage so that they cant "Breed" ... I think the mans nut

you rock thumbsup.gif

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Do you have a link to this article/study? Or did I miss it?

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No, but I think that vegeterians are hypocrites

Explain this to me. I don't understand why. Perhaps you have inner feelings of guilt for causing the needless suffering of many animals, and so you are now trying to rationalize it.

The truth is, we humans are evolved to be vegetarians, or at least, vegetarians except for the very rare bit of meat. Don't believe me? Look at the facts:

Carnivores: have claws

Herbivores: no claws

Humans: no claws

Carnivores: have no skin pores and perspire through the tongue

Herbivores: perspire through skin pores

Humans: perspire through skin pores

Carnivores: have sharp front teeth for tearing, with no flat molar teeth for grinding

Herbivores: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding

Humans: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding

Carnivores: have intestinal tract that is only 3 times their body length so that rapidly decaying meat can pass through quickly

Herbivores: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.

Humans: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.

Carnivores: have strong hydrochloric acid in stomach to digest meat

Herbivores: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater

Humans: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater

Carnivores: salivary glands in mouth not needed to pre-digest grains and fruits.

Herbivores: well-developed salivary glands which are necessary to pre-digest grains and fruits

Humans: well-developed salivary glands, which are necessary to pre-digest, grains and fruits

Carnivores: have acid saliva with no enzyme ptyalin to pre-digest grains

Herbivores: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains

Humans: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains

Carnivores: Fight/Flight brain system leans towards fight

Herbivores: Fight/Flight brain system leans towards flight

Humans: Fight/Flight brain system leans towards flight

"Studies show that vegetarians are stronger, more agile, have greater endurance, and recover from fatigue faster than meat-eaters. In endurance tests conducted at Yale university by Dr. Irving Fisher, on Yale athletes, instructors, doctors and nurses, it was found that vegetarians had over twice the stamina of meat eaters. A study at Brussels University by Dr. J. Ioteyko and V. Kipani found that vegetarians were able to perform endurance tests two to three times longer than meat eaters ..."

"Danish investigators studied the effects of diet on levels of endurance. In this study, a group of men was put on three different diets on three separate occasions. On the first trial, the men were fed a mixed diet of animal products and plant products. The test utilized a stationary bicycle to measure endurance. Time to muscle failure was recorded for each participant. In this first trial condition, the average time to muscle failure was 114 minutes. In the second trial condition these same men were fed a diet high in animal products. The time to muscle failure on the stationary bicycle this time was an average of 57 minutes. In the third condition, the men ate a pure vegetarian diet of vegetables, grains, and fruit. It was in this final condition that the men performed the best. The average time to muscle failure was 167 minutes."

"The individual examples of world-class athletes who consume vegetarian diets lend credibility to these findings. Dave Scott, six time winner of the IronMan Triathlon is undisputedly one of today's greatest triathletes. He is vegetarian. Edwin Moses, an Olympic Gold Medalist, went eight years without ever being defeated in the 400 meter hurdles. He is also vegetarian. Even in bodybuilding, there are world-class vegetarians. Bill Pearl and Andreas Cahling have placed among the top in national and international competition."

"Doctors in Belgium systematically compared the number of times vegetarians and meat-eaters could squeeze a grip-meter. The vegetarians won handily with an average of 69, whilst the meat-eaters averaged only 38. As in all other studies which have measured muscle recovery time, here, too the vegetarians bounced back from fatigue far more rapidly than did the meat-eaters."

"The strongest animals in nature, such as elephants, bulls, buffaloes, oxen, and gorillas, are the herbivores (vegetarians). No carnivores (meat-eaters) grow this strong. The biggest, strongest creature on earth is the whale, who is purely vegetarian. He eats only algae, spirulina -- very rich in protein. The lightest, most agile, liveliest animals are also vegetarians: such as squirrels and deer. They are agile and also they have stamina. Compare a deer and a lion. The lion is a meateater, and after he runs 5 minutes, he gets tired. But the deer can run forever! It seems he is not touching the earth, he is so light, so weightless! This is the beauty of vegetarianism."

"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. We feel better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to their pain."

--Paul and Linda McCartney

Here are some more cool quotes:

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

--Mahatma Ghandhi

"To be a vegetarian is to disagree---to disagree with the course of things today. Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars---we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one."

--Isaac Bashevis Singer

"A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite."

--Leo Tolstoy

"If any kid ever realized what was involved in factory farming they would never touch meat again.I was so moved by the intelligence, sense of fun and personalities of the animals I worked with on Babe that by the end of the film I was a vegetarian."

--James Cromwell

"I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives."

--Dean Ornish, MD

"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of ‘real food for real people,’ you'd better live real close to a real good hospital."

--Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

"Animals are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God's sight."

--Rev. Dr Andrew Linzey

"As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."

--Pythagoras ?580-?500 BC

"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man."

--Charles Darwin 1809-1882

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."

--Thomas Edison 1847-1931

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

--Albert Einstein

"I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men."

--Leonardo DaVinci

No matter what anyone else says, I'll always believe that the difference between a cow and a man, is purely physical. We have the same soul, we are all equals.

I fail to see how I am hypocritical.

To stay at least a bit on topic whistling2.gif , DAMN!!! Now I feel guilty eating vegetables! lol laugh.gif

Edited by Druidus
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It's on the first page, Wild Eyes.

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  • 8 years later...

Kind of funny that someone wouldn't eat meat because it's cruel, but I suppose if plants feel pain, and cry, and can take likings to people, that eating vegetables is not cruel. Kind of hypocritical, so, I think that you guys need to think about it.

facepalm10.jpg

I'm not a vegie because the animal is killed. I'm a vegie because I don't like the way the majority of animals are farmed in horrible conditions, being tortured etc. They are also killed in a hirrible way.

That is why I am a vegie, but carry on with your ignorance. :tu:

No, but I think that vegeterians are hypocrites.

Someones butthurt, was your ex a vegie and left you cause your ignorant?

Edited by Coffey
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