【原】植物会尖叫！？英语读头条（第624期）

Plants May Let Out Ultrasonic Squeals When Stressed

植物在受到压力时，会发出超声波尖叫声

By Katherine J. Wu  ︱ December 9, 2019 

翻译：Ray︱校对：Sally

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — New research from Tel Aviv University has found that plants make noise when stressed.

特拉维夫大学的最新研究发现，植物在压力下会发出噪音。

For the study, scientists focused on tomato and tobacco plants.

在这项研究中，科学家们重点研究了番茄和烟草。

They placed plants into three groups. These were drought-stressed plants, plants cut at the stem and control plants. These were placed in an acoustic box for an hour.

他们把植物分成三组。一些是受干旱威胁的植物，一些切断的植物，以及对照植物。它们被放在一个声箱中达一个小时。

acoustic：声音的

Each plant was recorded with two microphones placed 10 centimeters away.

每株植物都有被放置在10厘米外的两个麦克风，为它们做记录。

On average, drought-stressed tomato plants emitted roughly 35 ultrasonic sounds per hour, while tobacco plants produced 11 per hour. Cut tomato plants created roughly 25 sounds per hour, while tobacco plants generated 15.

平均而言，受干旱威胁的番茄植株每小时发出35声超声波，而烟草植株每小时发出11声。切下的番茄植株每小时发出25个声音，而烟草植株每小时发出15个声音。

The study found that all control plants produced, on average, less than one sound per hour.

研究还发现，所有的对照植物平均每小时发出的声音不到一个。

The scientists explained in the study that these sounds could potentially be heard by other organisms up to several meters away.

科学家们在研究中解释说，这些声音可能被几米外的其他生物听到。

The tomato plants were also placed in a greenhouse setting to test whether or not sounds emitted by plants would be identified outdoors. The results matched researchers' findings from the plants in the acoustic box in that plants produce more sounds as they become dehydrated.

番茄植株还被放置在温室里，以测试植物发出的声音是否能在室外被识别出来。而结果与研究人员在声箱中对植物的研究结果相符，因为植物脱水时会发出更多的声音。

Machine learning classifiers were able to distinguish distinct noises produced by the different plants in both the acoustic box and the greenhouse setting.

机器学习分类器能够区分不同植物在声箱和温室环境中产生的不同噪声。

Researchers suggested that in the future, farmers may be able to use this type of technology to listen out for drought-stressed crops to better assess their crops.

研究人员建议，在未来，农民也许会使用这类技术来监听受干旱威胁的作物，以便更好地评估他们的作物。

我们为什么分心？哈佛心理专家告诉你。英语读头条（第558期）

心理学家对5000个天才少年追踪调查45年，这是6个重大发现。英语读头条（第149期）

警察罚了热狗摊主60块，互联网却还给了摊主87000块。英语读头条（第158期）

👇