Researchers say mushrooms can talk to each other with 50-word vocabulary

It may sound unbelievable but a study has revealed that mushrooms can talk among themselves. The study says they use at least 50 words to communicate with each other.

It is probably the first time that such a study has claimed that fungi talk among themselves.

In a study of the electrical activity of four species of fungi, researchers found the electrical impulses to be structurally similar to human speech and resembled the vocabulary of dozens of words. 

The impulses increased when wood-digesting fungi were in contact with wood, meaning that they transmit information about food or injury through electrical signals, researchers added.  

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The research was published by the Royal Society Open Science. In that, professor Andrew Adamatzky said, “Assuming that spikes of electrical activity are used by fungi to communicate and process information in mycelium networks, we group spikes into words and provide a linguistic and information complexity analysis of the fungal spiking activity. We show that distributions of fungal word lengths match that of human languages.”

However, professor Adamatzky added: “We should not expect quick results: we are yet to decipher the language of cats and dogs despite living with them for centuries, and research into electrical communication of fungi is in its pure infant stage.”