山東 王慧慧

交流并不是人類的專屬技能，動(dòng)植物也可以通過化學(xué)物質(zhì)互相交流。一項(xiàng)科學(xué)研究表明，真菌也有類似的能力，比如，蘑菇就能夠通過電信號(hào)交流溝通。

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1Mushrooms on a log may each seem like quiet, separate organisms, but they're actually the above-ground fruit belonging to a fungus (真菌),connected to the large organism by a root network called mycelium (菌絲). Although mushrooms may not seem very talkative either, a new study shows electrical signals traveling through their mycelium network could help the organism communicate.

2According to the research, some mushrooms can use electrical impulses to share and process information in their body. When signal activity increases, it creates complicated patterns that may function like words in human speech.

3Previous research has found that mushrooms can send electrical signals underground through long, thread-like structures, which expand to form a network of mycelium. It works like nerve cells that send signals to other parts of the human body.Some studies have shown that electrical activity will increase when the mycelium of wood-digesting mushrooms touches wooden blocks, which may indicate that mushrooms can use these impulses to share information about food or injury.

4In the new study, four species were analyzed. Researchers listened to the mushrooms' chat using tiny electrodes （電極） connected to mycelium to measure the power in signal activity. Each result in the activity was organized into several groups and given a linguistic and information complexity analysis. The power varied in duration and length,with some lasting up to 21 hours. The electrical points resembled a human vocabulary of up to 50 words. However, only 15 to 20 mushrooms' words are used frequently.

5Mushrooms' words are also similar in length to human words. The mushroom's word length averaged over the four species is 5.97, which is of the same range as an average word length in some human languages. For example, it is 4.8 in English and 6 in Russian.

6While the research shows mushrooms can produce patterns of electrical signals,there's no way to tell what they are talking about, if they are at all. While comparing the mushroom's electrical signals to human speech is interesting and notable, some researchers are skeptical. “Though interesting,the interpretation as language seems somewhat overenthusiastic and requires more research,” says Dan Bebber from the University of Exeter.

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Some studies have shown that electrical activity will increase when the mycelium of wood-digesting mushrooms touches wooden blocks, which may indicate that mushrooms can use these impulses to share information about food or injury. 一些研究表明，當(dāng)以木材為食的蘑菇的菌絲接觸到木塊時(shí)，電活動(dòng)會(huì)增加，這可能表明蘑菇可以利用這些脈沖來分享關(guān)于食物或損傷的信息。

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