Mathematical analysis of the electrical signals fungi seemingly send to one another has identified patterns that bear a striking structural similarity to human speech. 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. 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, Adamtzky suggested. Whatever these “spiking events” represent, they do not appear to be random, he added. Fungi seeks similar: scientist investigates mushroom ‘chat’
What a lovely photo at beginning of this article! (Schizophyllum...?) I was struck by the resemblance between those fluffy caps and that worn by Dua Lipa during a performance on Saturday Night Live: https://twitter.com/dualipanoticia/status/1340539661178073090 Mother Nature: the first, and best, designer!
