为了保护动物而抵制肉食的素食者们，可曾想过植物也怕疼吗？近日一项惊人的研究发现指出，植物在缺水以及被切开时会发出超声波“惨叫声”。知道这个事实后，你还能心安理得地采花摘果吗？

We always think that it’s ok for us to leave our plants unattended during our vacation as we believe that they’ll survive just fine. Plus, plants won’t scream like pets, so they must be okay, right?

我们始终认为在度假期间让植物无人看管也无所谓，因为我们认为它们自己可以照常生存下去。再说植物也不会像宠物一样尖叫，所以它们一定还好，难道不是吗？

A recent study done by a group of scientists at the Tel Aviv University has discovered that some plants will scream in a high frequency when they are undergoing stress.

还真不是。事实上，一项由以色列特拉维夫大学的科学家团队主导的最新研究发现：某些植物在承受压力时会发出高频率尖叫。

The research was carried out on tomato plants and tobacco plants by cutting their stems and depriving them of water. A microphone is placed 10cm away from the setup.

在研究中，他们或是切开番茄植株和烟草植株的茎部，或是剥夺其水分，同时将一个麦克风放置在距离实验装置10厘米的地方。

When they started cutting the stems, they found out that the plants started ‘screaming’ between 20 and 100 kilohertz and they believe that this scream is probably meant to warn other plants and organisms nearby.

当他们开始切割茎部时，他们发现植物开始发出在20至100千赫兹之间的“尖叫”，他们相信这种尖叫很可能是为了警告附近的其他植物和生物。

When the tomato plant’s stem was cut, 25 ultrasonic distress sounds were recorded over the course of an hour, and on the other hand, 15 ultrasonic distress sounds were recorded from the tobacco plant.

他们在切开番茄植株的茎部后，在一小时的过程中记录到了25次超声波“惨叫声”。另一方面，从烟草植株实验中记录到了15次超声波“惨叫声”。

When they deprived the plants of water, the tomato plants recorded even more distress sounds with 35 distress sounds in an hour while the tobacco plants recorded about 11 distress sounds.

当他们剥夺这些植株的水分时，在一个小时内记录到番茄植株发出了更多的“惨叫声”：35次，而在烟草植株实验中记录到了约11次“惨叫声”。

The plants also responded differently to different kinds of stress, for example, the tobacco plant gave out a more intense ‘scream’ when they were deprived of water than when their stems were cut. But plants that were in no immediate danger released less than one ultrasonic sound per hour.

除此之外，这些植物对不同压力的反应也不同，例如，当烟草植物缺水时，发出的尖叫声比其茎部被割断时发出的“尖叫”声更为强烈。而没有遭遇即刻危险的植物每小时释放的超声波都少于一次。

The group of scientists then said that this changes the way we think of plants as we had always assumed that they are silent, but the thing is their voices are so high-pitched that we just can’t hear them.

科学家团队对此表示，这改变了我们对植物的看法，因为我们一直认为植物是沉默的，但事实是它们发出的声音很高，甚至于高到我们都听不到。

Last year, another study has found out that plants feel pain when are touched or plucked and it will, in turn, cause the release of a foul-tasting chemical.

值得一提的是，去年有另一项研究发现：植物在被触摸或拔除时会感到疼痛，这反过来会促使其释放出散发恶臭的化学物质。