Mushrooms Communicate With Each Other Using Up To 50 'Words', Scientist Claims (theguardian.com) 45
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Buried in forest litter or sprouting from trees, fungi might give the impression of being silent and relatively self-contained organisms, but a new study suggests they may be champignon communicators. Mathematical analysis of the electrical signals fungi seemingly send to one another has identified patterns that bear a striking structural similarity to human speech. Previous research has suggested that fungi conduct electrical impulses through long, underground filamentous structures called hyphae -- similar to how nerve cells transmit information in humans. It has even shown that the firing rate of these impulses increases when the hyphae of wood-digesting fungi come into contact with wooden blocks, raising the possibility that fungi use this electrical "language" to share information about food or injury with distant parts of themselves, or with hyphae-connected partners such as trees. But do these trains of electrical activity have anything in common with human language?
To investigate, Prof Andrew Adamatzky at the University of the West of England's unconventional computing laboratory in Bristol analyzed the patterns of electrical spikes generated by four species of fungi -- enoki, split gill, ghost and caterpillar fungi. He did this by inserting tiny microelectrodes into substrates colonized by their patchwork of hyphae threads, their mycelia. The research, published in Royal Society Open Science, found that these spikes often clustered into trains of activity, resembling vocabularies of up to 50 words, and that the distribution of these "fungal word lengths" closely matched those of human languages.
Split gills -- which grow on decaying wood, and whose fruiting bodies resemble undulating waves of tightly packed coral -- generated the most complex "sentences" of all. The most likely reasons for these waves of electrical activity are to maintain the fungi's integrity -- analogous to wolves howling to maintain the integrity of the pack -- or to report newly discovered sources of attractants and repellants to other parts of their mycelia, Adamatzky suggested. "There is also another option -- they are saying nothing," he said. "Propagating mycelium tips are electrically charged, and, therefore, when the charged tips pass in a pair of differential electrodes, a spike in the potential difference is recorded." Whatever these "spiking events" represent, they do not appear to be random, he added.
To investigate, Prof Andrew Adamatzky at the University of the West of England's unconventional computing laboratory in Bristol analyzed the patterns of electrical spikes generated by four species of fungi -- enoki, split gill, ghost and caterpillar fungi. He did this by inserting tiny microelectrodes into substrates colonized by their patchwork of hyphae threads, their mycelia. The research, published in Royal Society Open Science, found that these spikes often clustered into trains of activity, resembling vocabularies of up to 50 words, and that the distribution of these "fungal word lengths" closely matched those of human languages.
Split gills -- which grow on decaying wood, and whose fruiting bodies resemble undulating waves of tightly packed coral -- generated the most complex "sentences" of all. The most likely reasons for these waves of electrical activity are to maintain the fungi's integrity -- analogous to wolves howling to maintain the integrity of the pack -- or to report newly discovered sources of attractants and repellants to other parts of their mycelia, Adamatzky suggested. "There is also another option -- they are saying nothing," he said. "Propagating mycelium tips are electrically charged, and, therefore, when the charged tips pass in a pair of differential electrodes, a spike in the potential difference is recorded." Whatever these "spiking events" represent, they do not appear to be random, he added.
Duh! (Score:5, Funny)
Of course they communicate! Not only between themselves. Last time I got several hours of lecture on life, the Universe and everything from a magic mushroom!
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Maybe there is some truth in Star Trek Discovery.
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I was wondering how far I'd have to scroll to find a reference to ST Discovery. Second post. Nice job.
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Now, does it mean mushrooms already have words for "WTF is a starship doing here?!" or is it going to be another word they're going to have to add to their vocabulary?
I also wonder what the mushrooms would decide as well - after all, are they going to allow starships to continue passing through or veto it? Granted, they probably forgot about it over 700 years of no one using it, but...
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There's a third option -- put up a toll booth. Then when they demand payment in poop, we can finally find out how people go to the bathroom on the Enterprise.
I always assumed it was a little discussed function of the Transporter.
Found some audio evidence of mushrooms talking (Score:2)
Neurons (Score:3)
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Indeed. Neurons in the mammalian brain produce complex but probably bounded sequences of firing, but that doesn't make it conscious language. The most fundamental issue being fungi don't have anything resembling a brain, even a distributed one.
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It's surprising that even the source article dumbs down to calling this "language." Encoding and signaling makes plenty of sense. But calling that language is like calling DNA language.
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Neurons individually have complex firing patterns?
What's the mechanism of control here?
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dang. DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and Avatar, are both true!
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From the article (Score:5, Informative)
From the SUMMARY (Score:5, Informative)
"There is also another option -- they are saying nothing," he [Adamatzky] said. "Propagating mycelium tips are electrically charged, and, therefore, when the charged tips pass in a pair of differential electrodes, a spike in the potential difference is recorded." Whatever these "spiking events" represent, they do not appear to be random, he added.
He knows there's a chance that it's nothing. He's even pointed out that it could be nothing. He's just pointing out that it COULD be SOMETHING. It's an interesting avenue of research.
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Sure, but blame the headline writers, not the scientist doing the research.
the even less polite version (Score:4, Insightful)
less polite, but more accurate: "They seem to have been sampling their data" . . .
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Another scientist: "The interpretation as language seems somewhat overenthusiastic." That seems like a polite way to say, "Probably bullshit."
Not quite. An independent research team has fed the signals into a language analysis AI, and they found out that the most common mushroom message is:
"OUCH! Another hiking hipster has torn off my gonads again!"
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Not language, but there must be some form of mechanical communication going on.
In a forest, Mycorrhizal fungi transport phytonutrients between trees.
Nutrients that fungi themselves do not use.
mushroom (Score:5, Funny)
Insulting msuhrooms (Score:2)
Interesting! apparently, on several occasions, when I compared a person to a mushroom - I was insulting the shrooms!
I wionder... (Score:2)
Badger. (Score:4, Funny)
Surely "badger" and "snake" must be 2 of these words...
You shouldn't anthromorphize fungi (Score:4, Informative)
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and told a bear to come punch me in the face.
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But I met one before, he was a fun guy.
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Phail.
Mushroom porn (Score:2)
Question (Score:2)
jail to these mushrooms! (Score:2)
Did they look into morels? (Score:3)
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Just don't eat the ones that aren't hollow. :) Or there won't be much neural activity.
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I can't imagine anyone who has seen a real morel ever mixing them up with another mushroom again.
Probably not more than once at least.
Depends on how much you take (Score:2)
Really.
Disco (Score:2)
That Extra Data (Score:2)
I wonder if it's occurred to them that the extra data communicated might be a Crossfield-class starship transitioning through the mycelial network.
Oh, wait. Probably not. Because that's cosmically idiotic.
What? (Score:2)
The phrase, "There are people who study this kind of thing," comes to mind.
Soylent green... (Score:1)
If mushrooms get infected (Score:2)
They will even produce sounds resembling electronic music.