this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 211 points 1 month ago (4 children)

By contrast, stressed plants are much noisier, emitting an average up to around 40 clicks per hour depending on the species. And plants deprived of water have a noticeable sound profile. They start clicking more before they show visible signs of dehydrating, escalating as the plant grows more parched, before subsiding as the plant withers away.

someone smarter than me should get to inventing a device that listens to plant clicks and tells you when it needs water

[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 month ago

That's actually mentioned as one possible use case further down the article!

[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Might be a good use-case to have your home irrigation system be triggered by plant clicks instead of a schedule.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

It could be. Although we don't know how much those sounds indicate distress, and perhaps watering should happen much sooner.

Imagine if aliens abduct you and give you food only when your stomach makes the kind of noise it makes after three days without eating anything, because "that's all they can detect."

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 1 month ago (34 children)
[–] [email protected] 95 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (65 children)

Vegans consume fewer plants than anyone else. It takes a LOT of plants to raise a cow, pig, or chicken. From an economic point of view, meat is a way of refining mountains of cheap, plentiful, safe plant products into a scarce, harmful and addictive luxury product. This comes up a lot, you'd be amazed how many plants rights activists your average vegan runs into.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (43 children)

If you think pigs, chickens and cows have the same level of awareness and perception as broccoli, tomatoes or potatoes than you're the potato.

Humans have to eat and with the exception of a few minerals like salt, everything edible to humans is alive on some level. Vegansisn is making an ethical choice about reducing what causes the most pain fear and suffering in another. If I were to develop cancer, a tape worm or a virus should I also allow those living things to thrive as well or does "Uh, now what?" also apply to antibiotics?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I hope they like stones. Hmmm, those crunchy minerals!

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I hope they like stones. Hmmm, those crunchy minerals!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They look like big, good, strong hands, don't they

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Haha as always, you do what you can

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (25 children)

Eat fruits, the plants give those to you specifically to eat.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

What? The fact that plants physically react to being cut has absolutely no bearing on whether they have conscious experience.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well, sort of. Not in the same way you or I might scream. Rather, they emit popping or clicking noises in ultrasonic frequencies.

Another "science" community with clickbaity bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago

Eh... What? It's an interesting article. The screaming is in quotation marks. So as far as I'm concerned, the title is fine.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Mowing my lawn must be a fucking nightmare for everything involved. ☹️

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Imagine if instead of a podcast or audiobook or symphonic power metal you had to listen to the screams of your lawn as you mowed its life short

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It gets worse -- that doesn't kill the grass. It just mutilates it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

and you get to do it over and over again every time it grows back!

grass is the Ken Kaneki to my lawnmowers Jason lol

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You know why freshly mown grass smells so nice?
The smell is the grass's defense against grazing animals, as it attracts predators.
It smells nice cause it tells your predator brain there are prey animals you can eat nearby.
So the grass is literally snitching on the animals that are eating it, announcing their presence to their predators.

Evolution is fascinating that way.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hasn't this study been done before? Feel like I've heard of grass "distress signals" from years back

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, remember that one as well, but this is a literal sound, not only a "plants communicate stress in some way" (if I remember the previous research correctly).

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nah, the pops and clicks are just plant language for, "I give my consent to be your food. Namaste."

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I hear the screams of the vegetables (scream, scream, scream)

Watching their skins being peeled (having their insides revealed)

Grated and steamed with no mercy (burning off calories)

How do you think that feels? (bet it hurts really bad)

Carrot juice constitutes murder (V8's genocide)

Greenhouses prisons for slaves (let my vegetables grow)

We have to stop all this gardening (it's dirty as hell)

Let's call a spade a spade (a spade is a spade is a spade is a spade is a...)

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Remember that Mythbusters (Episode 61 Deadly Straw) that re-created Cleve Backster's primary perception experiments to show plants can sense malicious intent and totally re-created his results? I had to re-watch it to make sure I was remembering correctly. They totally just alter the experiment until they break it, then sweep it under the rug and call it busted. Totally.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (8 children)

I remember this mythbusters episode. They basically detected that plants “might “ scream or signal to other plants. They got some weird outliers too.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

My phone also screams (signals) when someone calls, must mean my phone feels pain I guess.

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