People stunned to learn plants 'scream' when you cut them

As stone-cold and cool as you like to think you are, you’ve still got feelings. We’ve all got feelings.

And so have your mates, like the ones you live with. You know, your little dog, your cat, your plant. Well, kind of. Bear with me here.

Just like we would, or your dog would, plants actually ‘scream’ when you cut them, according to a study.

Understandably, people are pretty stunned to learn this bizarre fact about the things they’re claiming they’re so committed to ‘growing’ in the garden.

Scientists found that every time a plant is cut or is dehydrated it 'screams'.

And it’s not just a quiet little yelp either, they claim it's comparable to the volume of conversation between us mere humans.

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During the study, published on Cell, the scientists looked at how tomato and tobacco plants responded to stress.

They were placed in both a soundproof acoustic chamber as well as a much noisier green house and basically left without water for several days and cut their stems.

Then, a special recorder was taken in to document the differences as sounds were totally inaudible to the human ear – that’s due to their very high frequency.

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But the recorders picked up that a single plant will let out between 30 to 50 of these noises in just an hour, if it’s really feeling that stress.

But it’s not just those two types of plants letting out 'screams', scientists found the same noises made by wheat, grape and cactus plants among others too.

"When tomatoes are not stressed at all, they are very quiet," Evolutionary biologist and theoretician, and senior author on the study, Lilach Hadany said.

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"Plants interact with insects and other animals all the time, and many of these organisms use sound for communication, so it would be very suboptimal for plants to not use sound at all."

Unsurprisingly, people are pretty blown away by the idea of plants sitting there screaming in stress as one user joked on TikTok: “And this is exactly why aliens haven’t come to Earth.”

One slammed: “Vegans, your dinner is crying.”

While others pointed out on X: “Almost 100% sure that there is a Roald Dahl short story about this?”

And they’re right – Dahl wrote a fictional story centuries ago called The Sound Machine about plants that could let out a shriek so high humans couldn’t hear it.

Well, what’s next? A giant peach?

Topics: Science, Environment, Social Media

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_