00:03verbal communication is one of humanity's greatest abilities allowing us to teach and pass on
00:08information or warn one another of danger and while other creatures can also communicate in
00:13similar ways we often think of plants as sort of passive organisms but new evidence suggests that's
00:18not the case we've long known that plants can communicate with chemical signals in fact send
00:23bot creates for the conversation that's what's happening when you smell freshly cut grass
00:27explaining the volatiles or chemical substances released by the grass plants which we associate
00:32with that smell are one way they communicate the nearby plants that a predator or in this case a
00:37lawnmower is present prompting an adjustment in plant defenses however new research suggests that
00:42plants are also talking to one another via electrophysiology scientists have begun
00:47inserting electrical probes into plants in greenhouses both reading what plants are communicating
00:52outwardly and also influencing their behaviors by sending electrical signals to them in one
00:57experiment they were even able to get a venus fly trap to open and close its mouth like leaves
01:01decoding this plant language could let us better understand our crops though experts also say there
01:06is a massive underground plant communication system sometimes referred to as the wood wide web
01:11believed to connect some 80 percent of all plants and fungi
