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Comment by withinboredom | Hacker News Reader

Vegans aren't going to have anything to eat now... /s

In all seriousness, this is wild.

What's wild about it? Plants shrink when drying up and that collapses tiny cavities in their stems. It's only surprising that this sound can be detected so easily.

If you camp in spring near fast growing grasses or bushes, you can clearly hear them grow.

How do you know what you are hearing is them “growing” instead of wind rustling them or insects moving around?

In my experience they have been distinct sounds of pressure and movement between plant fibres, in ways that the wind or insects wouldn’t or couldn’t cause in that setting.

If you lay still on a warm, quiet, still day in spring in a field or meadow, you might hear a lot of sounds you otherwise haven’t and wouldn’t expect. There’s a lot of activity. Sometimes plants will let some leaves or blades free after a seed husk finally breaks under their weight. It’s just gravity and pressure at work, but you’ll hear these things frequently.

This sort of thing reminds me of learning to find mushrooms. I had no idea mushrooms are everywhere until I started looking. They occupy all kinds of spaces in various seasons, dependent on a rain, a species of tree, or a sudden warmth after a cool period. Once you see them, they’re everywhere.

Similarly, plants and their myriad processes kind of jump out at you once you observe them closely. Before then they may seem relatively inert.

It's not a guess. It's simply a fact that you can hear some fast-growing plants growing. No need to personally investigate unless you want to.

Rhubarb: https://soundcloud.com/rhubarb-rhubarb-rhubarb/a-mass-of-pop...

Bamboo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HkhBxBZELk

Corn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76xEkEXI2a4

I've heard the buds on the end of a branch busting their way out of the dryer outer layer. It was calm. At first I thought bugs, but finally realized what it was. It was much harder to hear than beetles boring their way into a tree.

Maybe you can hear paint dry, too.

A pig's squeals when it's slaughtered is merely air passing through the constricted trachea.

this is the sub-conscious contra-positive of the news that many intelligent red meat eaters know and do not want to hear "You" group-not-me "must" getting-orders-or-else "eat" what is on everyone's mind most of the waking hours of life "now" no choices

Vegans are a portion of a percent of the human population, maybe a bit more around YNews.. meanwhile how many red meat eaters out there? reading now?

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