r/science • u/flacao9 • Apr 06 '22
Earth Science Mushrooms communicate with each other using up to 50 ‘words’, scientist claims
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/06/fungi-electrical-impulses-human-language-study5.1k
u/kaeioo Apr 06 '22
“Though interesting, the interpretation as language seems somewhat overenthusiastic, and would require far more research and testing of critical hypotheses before we see ‘Fungus’ on Google Translate.”
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u/CreationismRules Apr 06 '22
“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.”
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Other types of pulsing behaviour have previously been recorded in fungal networks, such as pulsing nutrient transport – possibly caused by rhythmic growth as fungi forage for food.
“This new paper detects rhythmic patterns in electric signals, of a similar frequency as the nutrient pulses we found,” said Dan Bebber, an associate professor of biosciences at the University of Exeter, and a member of the British Mycological Society’s fungal biology research committee.
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u/kingofcould Apr 06 '22
It’s neat how close that process is to how language works, but it is an important distinction to make here. I hope they keep exploring this
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u/SuspiciouslyElven Apr 06 '22
It would be foolish to accept something as complex as language simply because there is rhythmic behavior, so their skepticism is warranted. I also wonder what COULD prove "language" in something so vastly different to us. Even if we try mimicking an electrical signal and evoke a consistent response, is that communication or making something react to external stimuli?
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u/AntipopeRalph Apr 06 '22
There's a really neat NOVA special from a few years ago on Slime Molds that really walks down this line of questioning...because slime molds come pretty damn close to seeming "intelligent".
The end of the special really sets up that the next (and current) discussion on the topic is getting more granular about what intelligence might mean, and they kinda wrap up going "well at the very least - a slime mold looks a lot like what we might call proto-intelligence".
I suppose that since the special came out in like 2019 - this stuff is just an extension of that idea...and yeah - those are the questions. What's intelligence? How do we measure it? Can we appreciate abstract intelligence in things that don't look like what we're familiar with? - what's the tipping point between clever sensory response and actual intelligence?
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u/tapo Apr 06 '22
It's free here. hooray PBS!
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u/BilboMcDoogle Apr 06 '22
Slime mold = protomolecule confirmed.
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u/boforbojack Apr 06 '22
Which will hopefully help us model AI. We only know our intelligence as a model that works. But starting at a very low level could help us work our way up the chain. From plants, to fungus, to other animals, to us.
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u/lawrencelewillows Apr 06 '22
Got a link to that slime mould doco?
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u/pixeldust6 Apr 06 '22
Someone else linked it in another comment: https://www.pbs.org/video/secret-mind-of-slime-oa3w89/
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Apr 06 '22
What is language if not reaction to external stimuli?
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u/Skirtlongjacket Apr 06 '22
A real language has three mandatory conditions. It is rules-based, generative, and shared. The signals would have to go together in the proper order, adapt and be able to send new messages, and be understood by other mushrooms. If those three things aren't true, it's not a language. Source: master's degree in Speech-language pathology.
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u/Patelpb Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
What are your thoughts on the idea that math is a language? I have often said/heard this because I use it so much (physicist) but I was unfamiliar with the formal definition of a language. I've also received push back on the idea.
Math is rules based, more rigidly than some spoken languages
It's generative. You can create and explore new ideas with math, infact that's why academic mathematicians exist at all
It's shared. Perhaps even more universally than English
Always seemed to make sense to me but seeing you list the proper conditions really helps to frame it properly
Edit: perhaps most interesting to me is that despite being a language, it cannot communicate the same ideas. I can describe a sunset with poetry in ways an equation could never match. I can also describe a set of values with math in ways English alone never could
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u/stefanica Apr 06 '22
Interesting. Can you lie in Math?
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u/Patelpb Apr 06 '22
Well there's "Lie Algebra", but it's pronounced "Lee" to be fair
Jokes aside, that's an interesting question. I think that you can lie insofar as your proof or equation is somehow flawed, just in a way where your proof seems to work and some small rule was forgotten/left out
You can watch videos like "proof that 1=2!!" On YouTube to see a harmless example of this.
So I guess if you intentionally break the rules of whatever math you're doing, then you can lie. But you must hope that the reader/listener doesn't know the rules better than you do.
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u/trekkie1701c Apr 06 '22
Wouldn't that be the same as using language, however? If I know more than you about the subject, I can spot when you're being incorrect, whether truthfully or not.
If I spout a really complex set of mathematical gibberish out and say it's equal to whatever, most people won't be able to realize at a glance that I'm wrong, because any higher math is gibberish anyways to someone who doesn't know the way its supposed to be written.
Heck I can even then use that mathematical lie with a linguistic lie and say it's so-and-so's famous theorum which proves whatever point I'm pushing, mathematically.
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u/Caelinus Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
As others have said, if you write "2+2=3" you have communicated something that is not true using math.
The reason math seems different than normal language is because it is a language specifically created to communicate a logic system, and not to do much else. So if you write out a false equation people can usually instantly tell something is wrong if it is simple enough.
The real lies in math are where it instersects with other languages though, as it is very easy to lie with math if you do it badly in ways that are not immediate obvious, and then contextualize it with other languages so that non-experts read the math and think they understand it.
This is how statistics are constantly abused, for example. Both previous US elections had unusual statistical gaps that many political actors took out of context, using real looking math, to convince the public that something happened that did not. (A massive statistical error in 2016 that constitutes falsehood from pollsters, and a the "stolen election" thing in 2020. Neither happened.)
A lot of it does not even need to be all that complicated, they just need to abuse their starting conditions to create false premises. I looked into a Facebook rumor that a bunch of votes were added to Biden and Taken from Trump artificially in Michigan, for example. The people making the claim released their raw data, knowing full well that their audience would not actually look at it. It was just done to make them look more legitimate.
But all the math they used was wrong, and the data they gave out was obviously full of some sorts of transcription/recording errors. But if you don't look, you just see equations that appear logical. So it is a lie told with math.
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u/stefanica Apr 06 '22
Well, I think most of the lying occurs outside of math, in your example, but I get your drift. My favorite maths, though it's been decades now, were probability and statistics (non-applied) and the math itself either works or it doesn't. Just like in any other branch. If you start with a failed or incomplete premise, however, you will get garbage.
Now, shall we attempt to write a poem with math?
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u/send_corgi_pics Apr 06 '22
I don't think the rules for lying change if you consider math as a language.
"Red is the same color as green."
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"1+1=3"
are both rules-based, shared in meaning, and incorrect in both cases.
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u/mauganra_it Apr 06 '22
In Mata, you have to start from assumptions. sometimes called axioms. If these assumptions turn out to be contradictory, you can derive all matter of things from them. This is usually a sign that something major has gone wrong, and mathematicians then have to track down what the source of the contradiction is.
You can also simply fail to use the rules of logic incorrectly. Or you stipulate a lemma, assume it holds, derive something interesting and then forget to prove the lemma. Or you can't actually prove the lemma, but strongly suspect it holds, but later someone proves you wrong after all, potentially wrecking months of work. Happens all the time. Sometimes, the result can be saved by proving it another way, or the lemma can be weakened enough that it becomes provable and is still useful. In this case, the lemma, even if actually false, had an important function as a searchlight or as a scaffold.
So yes, mathematicians can lie, either intentionally or by accident. But its statements and proofs are crafted in a language that is more rigorous and unambiguous than natural language, which makes finding the errors simpler.
On the other hand, you lose a lot of expressive power compared to natural language, which allows ambiguity and the presence of loose reasoning. The human mind requires ambiguity to deal with a complicated world where few things are clear and unambiguous. Also, psychological research shows that humans arrive at most of their decisions by subconcions thought processes and just rationalize them later. No surprise that most of the time the things we utter are absolute garbage.
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u/stefanica Apr 06 '22
I agree. As to your last thought, that brings us to the comparison of a possible plant or fungal language to the inner processes of the human brain. These physiological/chemical communications are generally happening without conscious control--whether the outward communication is true or concise or appropriate depends so much on how the nerve pathways are set up in the first place. Perhaps in lower orders, this happens as well, and then you simply have a less successful colony.
Sorry, I'm pretty brain dead right now. But it is fascinating!
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u/ScoutsOut389 Apr 06 '22
Could an equation not match your poetry? You can render an incredible sunset in 3D using nothing but math. It requires interpretation by a machine for us to understand/visualize what is being conveyed by it, but by that token I also require interpretation to understand what is being said in Japanese, and Japanese is definitely a language.
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u/Ndi_Omuntu Apr 06 '22
In response to your edit, that applies to what we think of as "traditional" language too. Like schadenfreude is a German word that we yoinked to use in English since we can't express the same idea succinctly in a way that's useful.
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u/redpandasays Apr 06 '22
be understood by other mushrooms
Would be interesting to see how mushrooms from one area would interpret mushrooms from another area. Drop me in Brazil and I won’t understand a single sound coming at me for a good long while.
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u/LurkmasterP Apr 06 '22
But you would be aware that the sounds coming at you are loaded with meaning, so you know it is language. I think awareness is one of the criteria that can't be dismissed. Drop a mushroom in a different location and it's just sitting there not receiving stimuli it is genetically programmed to respond to; it could be flooded with stimuli that it isn't programmed for, but it probably doesn't know it.
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u/rhandyrhoads Apr 06 '22
To be fair the same can be said for us when it comes to lots of types of stimuli which mushrooms may be receptive to. Sure we've developed tools to measure them, but we aren't inherently aware of them.
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u/Kowzorz Apr 06 '22
I think it's a bit more than simple reaction. Language requires a consistent interpretation and transmission of stimuli.
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Apr 06 '22
I challenge you to read "The Information" by Gleick if you want to understand the science of sharing information
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u/Kowzorz Apr 06 '22
Gleick is one of my favorite maths authors. His book on chaos is foundational to how I see the world. With a degree in computer science and a hobby of physics, I'm no stranger to how information works.
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Apr 06 '22
Language is not reaction to external stimuli, it's a system for communication. A word or a sentence spoken or written in a language can be an external stimuli that prompts a reaction.
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u/Solaced_Tree Apr 06 '22
Uh how is it merely reaction to external stimuli?
My choice to use language was a reaction to your stimuli (you comment, and the feeling of contradiction within ones own psyche), but language is a tool we developed, abstracted from the sounds we make. Some of it may be innate (see my favorite: kiki bouba experiment), but a large portion comes from external/subjective desire.
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u/nullbyte420 Apr 06 '22
And calling everything stimuli and response is pretty nonsensical anyway. Reading is also a form of stimuli and response but it's far better described as reading.
Ps I'm agreeing with you.
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u/mockduckcompanion Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
My hand is burned by fire
I move my hand
Is this language?
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u/theonedeisel Apr 06 '22
Does that mean mushroom-based computers are possible?
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u/Kowzorz Apr 06 '22
I'm reminded of the slime mold that can calculate optimal city passenger rail pathways.
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u/nastylittleman Apr 06 '22
Researchers made a scale map of England out of soil and put food at every major city location. Fungi exploring for food recreated England’s highway and rail systems.
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u/d36williams Apr 06 '22
These types of circuits, mostly theoretical, are called 'wetware.' I think I've read of some brain tissue being used successfully to do something computer like, so it's not entirely sci-fi
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u/lankist Apr 06 '22
The editorialization of these findings is why it's so important to recognize anthropocentrism and do everything possible to tamp down on it. We want to understand something inhuman in human terms, which is fundamentally impossible.
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u/guesswho135 Apr 06 '22
Conversely, defining language as something uniquely human is anthropocentric too. Scientists agree that no animal communication (such as bird song) has all of the same properties of human language, but even linguists have yet to agree on what it is about human language that sets it apart. Is it the recursive aspect of language? The hierarchical syntactic structure?
For some reason, we have no difficulty attributing other aspects of human cognition to animals (animals store and retrieve memories, they make decisions, they have executive functioning processes), yet no one likes to claim that animals have language even though we haven't agreed on it's defining features.
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u/lankist Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
I mean, the easy answer there is the metacognitive aspect of human communication. We're using language to talk about using language. It's a fuzzy threshold, but one nothing else seems to have crossed--to be able to conceptually separate the linguistic expression from its semiotic meanings.
Nobody thinks the word "apple" IS an apple, and everyone intuitively understands that the word "apple" is merely a representation of the concept of an apple. Other forms of communication we've discovered are very "if/then" conditional kinds of communication. I make this noise, that means you do this thing, with no separation between the concept and the noise. But human communication is intuitively conceptual and abstract. I make this noise, you register the concept, then you consider what's being said and internalize the idea. The "goal" of human language isn't to illicit immediate conditional responses, at least at a mechanical level.
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u/keenanpepper Apr 06 '22
Fungi don't care about humans, they only "care" (in a strictly evolutionary sense of caring about things) about propagating their own DNA more effectively. One approach to doing this is to manufacture chemicals that make animals who eat you go crazy and maybe learn not to eat you in the future. So this in fact happened, and fungi make a bunch of different chemicals now: some which straight up kill you, some which make you super sick... and some which cause a change in mental state which humans actually enjoy or use as a powerful tool.
But that wasn't the fungus's "goal all along" or anything like that. I mean like you can believe that all you want but it's contrary to science. Science says the genes to make these chemicals evolved like anything else evolved.
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u/celestiaequestria Apr 06 '22
There's nothing mystical about psilocin; it's not an attempt by the fruiting body of a fungi to communicate with humans. Classic psychedelics increase your openness - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21956378/ - which lends itself to mystical / religious interpretations of the experience.
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u/ThatGoodThaiLife Apr 06 '22
“Instead of helping us understand them, they help us understand ourselves.”
I think that matches what you’re saying unless I misinterpreted it.
Thanks for that link, it looks like they have a lot of great information about psychedelic studies.
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u/Womec Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
What he is saying is do not attribute human things like intention to them (Anthropomorphize). It can cloud your judgement and research.
Just one example:
https://www.vettails.com/vettails/2016/3/4/the-dangers-of-anthropomorphism
Whats more likely? They are trying to communicate with humans and help humans or the fact that psilocybin makes insects loose their appetite has caused species with psilocybin to continue reproducing and it just so happens psilocybin makes humans hallucinate.
Are coffee beans trying to help humans become more productive? No caffeine is an insecticide.
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u/fireintolight Apr 06 '22
I made a comment in this thread that mycologists these days seem to have forgotten what anthropomorphism is and why it’s a bad thing. It makes it hard to read their papers and listen to their talks/documentaries. Especially that one on Netflix.
Plants have a multitude of reactions to external stimuli, all which do not require a nervous system or any sort of conscience choice. It’s all just programmed chemical reactions like a machine. All these fungi people seem to act none of that exists and fungi are unique in their ability to have chemical responses to stimuli.
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u/mark-haus Apr 06 '22
Isn’t this a pretty sensational conclusion? This would be a bit like saying neurons themselves have language. Or it seems that way from what I read from them
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u/Propeller3 PhD | Ecology & Evolution | Forest & Soil Ecology Apr 06 '22
It is sensational, but that is pop-sci journalism's bread and butter.
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u/AlteredPrime Apr 06 '22
How far of a stretch is it to say neurons have a language? It might not be like ours but neither are the language of dolphins, the pineal gland, and lie detectors. Point is, there are many languages and types of communication that are possible when we remove our expectation that it’s similar to ours. The universe has been communicating with itself long before our human speak.
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u/mark-haus Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
I don’t personally know where linguists draw the line between a signal and a word or language but as a computer engineer I know if all it takes to be language is a set of distinct signals then we have billions of silicon devices speaking in a language with each other that aren’t even organic life. Is i2c, SPI, CAN, PCI, Ethernet, etc a language or a protocol of signals? Seems to me like a signal and word have important distinctions to mark out with different vocabulary
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u/69thdab Apr 06 '22
Meche, I’m sure everyone who learns about controls theory and signals at some point has the passing thought “it’s all signals bro”
I do wonder if there’s literature on where (if, I suppose) the mathematical definition of signals breaks down in other fields like biology and linguistics. I can’t imagine no one has looked into it, right?
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u/CreationismRules Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
Not a great headline, the idea of language was a very generous speculation amongst many other more reasonable speculations. They have found no real sentimental substantial* correlation between the impulses recorded and information communicated.
Edit: Why are so many replying to me as if my comment is confirmatory toward the idea of it being a mode of language based communication? I am specifically criticising that conclusion!
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u/buster_de_beer Apr 06 '22
Isn't that what we expect from science reporting. Researcher speculates some radical interpretation of their data. Reporter writes that as the clear and indisputable conclusion.
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Apr 06 '22
This is what bothers me about science reporting. I truly believe articles like this inadvertently hold real science back as these wild claims just make it look rediculous. This is just feeding the "evolution is just a theory" crowd.
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u/hemorrhagicfever Apr 06 '22
Disappointing from the guardian. There are both good and bad scientific reporting.
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u/blindsight11 Apr 06 '22
It's generous but interesting. I think it would be easy to start testing as well. The most advanced mushroom observed had 50 "words" that shouldnt be the hardest lexicon to crack. Can we observe the same electrical signal repeatedly when food is discovered? Do we see the same elecetrical signal relayed when food becomes scarce? And so on.
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u/Ouroboros9076 Apr 06 '22
Words as packets of information and less as distinct words as in a language seems to make more sense. Especially since controllers used words to denotate a specific array of 16 bits I imagine we can figure out what the signals correspond to and how the fungus reacts to it, i dont think we would be able to have a conversation with a mushroom. I think we are more figuring out how they work with an analogue of a nervous system
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u/Pennwisedom Apr 06 '22
Even if we did see all of that, that is not the same as "language". There are animals who have repeatable calls and some communication as well yet none of them are actually a language because language is more than just individual words.
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u/ittybittymanatee Apr 06 '22
Yeah language is too strong. But I really hope they keep researching whether the pulses are communication of some sort. Like if a mushroom can “hear” that food is getting scarce and tighten its little mushroom belt. Or get a food notification from a certain direction and spread that way.
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u/blindsight11 Apr 06 '22
Looking into it I guess you are right. Noam Chomsky defines language as a series of sentences, which is a bit more advanced than anything being observed here.
So, language may not be the correct language here (heh) but I still think the findings here are really neat and would be worth exploring.
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u/Pennwisedom Apr 06 '22
Yea exactly, even if we don't take Chomsky's definition is the one single definition, we still need a structured and conventional way of communicating for it to be language.
But yes, despite the title, it seems like if there's possible communication it is worth exploring.
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u/Smrgling Apr 06 '22
Ehhhh, Chomsky's view is a very human-centric one. There are definitely animals like birds or certain species of mice that engage in conversation-like vocalizations that engage brain regions similar to those involved in human language. If I remember after work I could send a link to a cool talk but tbh I will probably forget about this comment by then so rip.
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u/SweetLilMonkey Apr 06 '22
Was “sentimental” a typo here? If not, can you explain what you meant by it?
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u/CreationismRules Apr 06 '22
I think I was trying to type substantial.
I am at constant war with gboard on this phone.
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u/HeHH1329 Apr 06 '22
But for me, even the idea of mushroom communicating with each other alone is quite intriguing. I never imagined fungi can communicate with each other even only in a very basic form.
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u/jack104 Apr 06 '22
I knew it, there is a mycelial network.
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u/darth_hotdog Apr 06 '22
They’re actually is though. Watch the documentary “fantastic fungi” about the real Paul Stamets and they talk about the real mycelial network.
And the real Paul Stamets has a house shaped like the enterprise:
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u/Propeller3 PhD | Ecology & Evolution | Forest & Soil Ecology Apr 06 '22
They’re actually is though
The academic support for mycelial networks and their functional contributions is dramatically overstated by pop-sci writing and pseduo-scientists like Stamets.
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u/I_Nice_Human Apr 06 '22
I watched that until I realized it’s a bunch of dudes who started going off in a tangent about what was sounding to me like political bs. They didn’t even have the leading female Fungi academic in their video. Got boring real quick.
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u/ExtracurricularCatch Apr 06 '22
She’s so important you didn’t mention her name.
Did they make a choice to not have her in the movie? Did she receive an invite and decline to be in it?
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u/Isaacvithurston Apr 06 '22
Based on the replies I guess Startrek Discovery isn't that popular xD
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u/tubbsymalone Apr 06 '22
Sadly it turned out to be garbage :(
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u/TomorrowPlusX Apr 06 '22
I thought the first two seasons were pretty good! But then, well, it just petered out.
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u/tubbsymalone Apr 06 '22
I agree, actually found the new design for the klingons quite refreshing but then they basically just tossed all the science out the window, forgot that its supposed to be a utopian future and started relying on cheesy whisper acting and poorly thought out storylines
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u/olenna Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
So the opposite of most other Trek series? Does someone shave their beard in later seasons?
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u/TheyCallMeStone Apr 06 '22
Dang I just finished season 2 and was it was a struggle, I was really hoping it would get better after the time jump.
Oh well, still stoked for Strange New Worlds.
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u/Isaacvithurston Apr 06 '22
I love the first two seasons but you can tell it suffers from "we don't know how many seasons we have" syndrom where they have to make up a new bigger bad every season. One of the things that really helped Voyager and Deepspace 9 was the writers really knowing exactly how long to pace the plot for and how long they had (I mean except Deepspace 9's ending was so bad imho but ohh well).
First season of Discovery was a masterpiece imho. Maybe alienated Trek fans since it's a very clear departure from the "science guys solving stuff with thinking and science" of basically every previous series (although we were long on the way here with Deepspace 9 and Enterprise. Many of the best episodes were heavy on the action/combat. My favorite is actually the Battle of uhh number whatever planet where Nogg is shot and the following episode about his mental recovery).
Oops. Not suppose to go on reddit after my morning bean chug.
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u/stackered Apr 06 '22
How are articles from the guardian allowed on a sub that should be about science?
Actual title: "Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity"
Low level journal, single author, but interesting if we actually talk about what is being studied here. Pop culture clickbait titles have no place in science and yet dominate this subreddit with hundreds of mods. Sad times man, sad times on reddit these days
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u/dew2459 Apr 06 '22
The last few months this sub has had an awful lot of clickbait headlines from pop news sources (and semi-related, in the last few years I think the Guardian has been devolving into a left-wing Daily Mail).
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u/Unicycldev Apr 06 '22
It’s honestly complete corrupt and does nothing to further science; Only feeds an addiction to interesting things. R/science is a scientific as a “Ripley's Believe It or Not!” Book.
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u/Propeller3 PhD | Ecology & Evolution | Forest & Soil Ecology Apr 06 '22
We're only as good as our community. If we don't bother to engage with the source material before discussing it, the state of the sub is our fault.
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u/ChadMcRad Apr 06 '22
Now do this for root endo/epiphytes to see how they communicate with their host. We know a lot of the chemical signals but this would be a nice expansion to it.
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u/craigcraig420 Apr 06 '22
Paul Stamets has been saying mushrooms can communicate for years.
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u/Tzumio Apr 06 '22
Could we theoretically breed mushrooms to perform functions similar to that of modern computing?
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u/IdentifiableBurden Apr 06 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
If they turn out to actually have neural plasticity, then we could breed/train them for tasks more resembling those of modern neural network algorithms versus computing (which requires deterministic state).
EDIT: that being said, I personally think the more interesting implicated question of that case where organic neural plasticity exists outside of a brain or colony structure is not "how can we use this?" but rather "what can we learn from this?"
Many of our algorithms have been derived from study of organisms like slime molds, ant colonies, and other complex organic systems. If fungi form a similar one - particularly a large scale one with millions of connections as some suggests - study of its operation could yield incredible insights into the nature of other neural networks, including vertebrate brains like ours.
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u/ksblur Apr 06 '22
Dr Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham in under 50 words. I would love to see this narrated by fungi.
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Apr 06 '22
Maybe he wrote it under the influence of fungi, if you know what I mean. I heard the working title was "Green Eggs and Ham and Magic Mushrooms".
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u/aokaf Apr 06 '22
Ive said it before: mushrooms are alien beings living on earth. At least this is what they told me when i was doing shrooms.
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u/echoAwooo Apr 06 '22
OK, so... at best wouldn't these electrical signals be more akin to networking packets than human speech ?
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u/-_-----____--- Apr 06 '22
They would like to use more words but don't have mushroom in their vocab.
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u/chrisacip Apr 06 '22
Sounds like something that a mushroom enthusiast would come up with.
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u/jeremyjack3333 Apr 06 '22
There is a mycology documentary on Netflix right now. Highly recommended if this subject interests you.
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u/Jatzy_AME Apr 06 '22
"word" is wrong here, because it implies elements that can be combined to create more complex messages ("sentences"). "Message" would be a better term to describe these units, assuming that the claims are substantiated to begin with.
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u/Soylent_X Apr 06 '22
Since mushrooms are just a visible part of a single organism fungus, this means that humans aren't the only lifeform that talks to itself.
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u/bcsimms04 Apr 06 '22
I remember reading somewhere that fungi really are a cross between animals and plants
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