Research shows fungi can actually speak to each other
April 12, 2022
- Professor records electrical activity in fungi.
- He discovers about 50 "words" in fungal language.
- He translates electrical spikes into binary strings turn out to be similar to those found in the central nervous system.
Research by a professor found about 50 "words" in fungal language similar to human speech after jabbing them with electrodes and recording their electric activity.
Fungi seem to be using electrical spikes for communication among fungal colonies.
Professor Andrew Adamatzky, a scientist working at the University of the West of England (UWE), published his research in The Royal Society. In his experiment, he recorded electrical impulses and observed the spike patterns.
The Guardian reported that previous studies have hinted towards fungi's ability to share information by using signals.
However, Adamatzky’s research asks the question: is the electrical activity of fungi similar to humans?
The answer might be yes, he said in the research.
He connected the devices to four species of fungi, namely enoki, split gill, ghost, and caterpillar fungi. He translated the electrical spikes into binary strings. Their big trains of spikes were similar to those found in the central nervous system.
The split gill mushroom seemed to have “said” the most sentences.
“The similarity could be just phenomenological.” the research clarified, however. The researcher does think that the spiking events don’t appear to be random.
