The debate over whether plants have feelings is about to reopen, thanks to scientific research in Italy and Germany. Findings suggest that plants under threat can use a devilish measure of cunning. They not only communicate the danger to plants nearby, they also call in help from other creatures.

    Research proved that plants sense--and react to--the presence of hungry, leaf-eating worms. Their response, as studied, was to emit an odour.
This alerted other plants to the presence of a predator. But it also served to call in what modern military planners would term air support. Wasps, the natural enemies of worms, were drawn by the odour to the plant where they either devoured the worm or injected it with eggs that later killed it.

    The study raised the interesting question: at the start of the process described, did the plants actually experience something that could be termed fear? A debate over this began in 1966 when a lie detector expert, Cleve Backster, connected a plant to a polygraph (lie detector). He said the machine registered changes as soon as he began to think about burning the plant’s leaves.

    意大利和德國的科學研究又引發(fā)了對植物是否有感情的討論。研究結(jié)果表明，受到威脅的植物會采取極巧妙的辦法，不但能把危險傳達給附近的植物，而且還能請求別的生物給予幫助。

    研究表明植物能感覺到饑餓的食葉蟲的出現(xiàn)，也能夠?qū)Υ俗龀龇磻?yīng)。研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，它們的反應(yīng)是發(fā)出一種氣味。這種氣味使別的植物警覺起來，意識到敵人來了�？墒�，這也起到了請求給予現(xiàn)代軍事學家所說的“空中支援”的作用。毛蟲的天敵黃蜂被這種氣味吸引到植物上來，它們或者把毛蟲吃下或者把卵產(chǎn)入毛蟲體內(nèi)，事后將其致死。

    研究也提出了有趣的問題：在所描述的過程開始時，植物真的體驗到了可以稱作“害怕”的感覺嗎？這個說法的爭論始于1966年，當時一個名叫克利夫-巴克斯特的測謊學家把一種植物同一臺多種波動描記器（測謊器）連接，他說他一考慮把植物的葉子燒了，測謊器就記錄到了變化。