【创作不易，您的关注是我持续的动力】

When we think of the brilliant flora and fauna of planet Earth, the usual suspects tend to come to mind, such as the great intelligence of dolphins, or elephants, and even, humbly speaking, ourselves.

当我们想到地球上聪明的植物和动物时，通常会想到比如有高度智慧的海豚或大象，甚至，不谦虚地说，会想到我们自己。

<生词学习： brilliant 聪明的>

Mushrooms, it’s probably fair to say, aren’t famed for their intelligence. For many, they’re controversial pizza toppings or dangerous poisonous horrors (not the same variety though, hopefully), and not much else. As it turns out, we’re not giving them nearly enough credit.

公平地说，蘑菇并不以其智力而闻名。对许多人来说，它们是有争议的比萨饼配料或危险的有毒恐怖物(虽然，希望不是同一种类)，除此之外别无其他。事实证明，我们并没有给予它们足够的信任。

<生词学习：fair 公平>

Astonishingly, the famed Koko the gorilla could use a vocabulary of more than 1,000 signs. Perhaps even more astonishingly, though, scientists believe that certain mushrooms may be able to communicate between themselves too, using a supposed vocabulary of 50 words!

令人惊讶的是，著名的大猩猩Koko可以使用超过1000个符号的词汇。然而，也许更令人惊讶的是，科学家们认为某些蘑菇可能也能够相互交流，使用50个单词的词汇！

<生词学习：astonishing令人惊讶的 >

FUN GUYS TO CHAT WITH

有趣的聊天对象

Mushrooms have always been fascinating case studies, thanks to their unique and potentially terrifying properties. The dreaded death cap mushroom, for instance, is so toxic that it causes sickness severe enough to cause irreparable damage to the cells in mere hours. Half of those poisoned by the death cap die, a fate that, in 1534, befell Pope Clement VII.

蘑菇一直是令人着迷的案例研究，这要归功于它们独特而潜在的可怕特性。例如，可怕的死亡帽菇毒性如此之强，以至于它能在短短几小时内引起足以对细胞造成不可修复的损害的疾病。一半被死亡帽毒死的人会死去，在1534年，搞翻了教皇克莱门七世。

<生词学习：fascinating 令人着迷的>

Mushrooms, clearly, are not to be underestimated. Particularly not now that we know they seem to be communicating with each other.

显然，蘑菇不容小觑。尤其是现在我们知道它们似乎在互相交流。

<生词学习：underestimate小觑 >

Fungi are often much more than what we see. In 1998, the largest known organism on the planet was discovered. At a reportedly four square miles large, how was it not discovered sooner? Because we didn’t know that what appeared to be multiple fungi were actually all a part of the same whole!

真菌往往比我们看到的要多得多。1998年，发现了地球上已知的最大生物。据说有四平方英里那么大，为什么没有早点被发现？因为我们不知道看似多种真菌实际上都是同一个整体的一部分！

Believed to be up to 8,650 years old, the Armillaria ostoyae is found in the Blue Mountains of Oregon. Scientists tested samples in the region and found that they were related, part of one gigantic organism! Also known as the “Humongous Fungus,” the Armillaria ostoyae was connected through a string of hyphae that made up many small parts of the singular organism. It is through these small varied connections that the gigantic organism is able to thrive.

奥氏蜜环菌拒信8000多年前在俄勒冈州的蓝山被发现。科学家测试了该地区的样本，发现它们是相关的，是一个巨大有机体的一部分！也被称为“巨大的真菌”，奥氏蜜环菌通过一串菌丝连接起来，这些菌丝构成了这个单一有机体的许多小部分。正是通过这些小而多样的联系，这个巨大的有机体才能茁壮成长。

<生词学习：gigantic 巨大的>

Now, you won’t hear tiny mushrooms talking away to each other at night in shady forests (that would truly be the stuff of nightmares), but through the magic of electric impulses, it seems they’re talking all the same!

现在，你不会在夜晚听到小蘑菇在阴凉的森林里互相交谈(那真的是噩梦的内容)，但是通过电脉冲的魔力，它们似乎都在说话！

<生词学习：tiny小的 >

MYSTERIOUS MUSHROOM MESSAGES神秘的蘑菇消息

UWE Bristol’s Andrew Adamatzky studied these impulses in several varieties of mushrooms. For the study, split gill, ghost, enoki, and caterpillar fungi were used. Data was collected via the use of electrodes, which were placed among the “roots” of this curious assortment of mushroom varieties. It was discovered that the pulses were not random but ordered. In a sophisticated fashion, in fact, to the degree that the coordination suggested the fungi were talking.

UWE·布里斯托尔的Andrew Adamatzky研究了几种蘑菇的这些信号。在这项研究中，使用了裂鳃菌、鬼菌、金针菇和毛虫。通过使用电极收集数据，电极被放置在这种奇怪的蘑菇品种的“根”中。发现脉冲不是随机的，而是有序的。事实上，以一种复杂的方式，在某种程度上，这种协调表明真菌在说话。

<生词学习：electrode 电极>

The pertinent question would be: What exactly do mushrooms talk about?

相关的问题是:蘑菇到底在谈论什么？

They often seem to be quite solitary organisms, revelling in the dark and the damp, but it seems that their primary concerns may be those shared by all forms of life: keeping themselves safe through warnings of danger and detecting something tasty and nutritious that may be within reach!

它们似乎经常是非常孤独的有机体，在黑暗和潮湿中狂欢，但似乎它们的主要关注点可能是所有形式的生命所共有的:通过危险警告来保护自己的安全，并检测可能触手可及的美味和营养的东西！

<生词学习：solitary 孤独的>

In April 2022, Adamatzky published the study titled “Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity.” In research performed on the human brain, spikes in such activity and the region in which these spikes occur, can and have told us many things about how our own minds work.

2022年4月，阿达马茨基发表了题目是“真菌的语言来源于它们的电脉冲活动”的研究报告。在对人类大脑进行的研究中，这种活动的尖峰以及这些尖峰发生的区域能够并且已经告诉我们许多关于我们自己的大脑如何工作的事情。

<生词学习： spike尖峰>

Adamatzky, apparently being a rather fun guy, took the outlandish step to apply similar methodology when examining the communication of the mushrooms.

Adamatzky显然是一个相当有趣的人，他采取了奇怪的步骤，在检查蘑菇的交流时应用了类似的方法。

<生词学习：outlandish奇怪的 >

“We found that spikes are often clustered into trains,” the scientist writes, which would suggest not just a lot of activity, but a lot of coordinated activity. At these times, it seems, the fungi had something vital to tell each other. Spikes varied in frequency and intensity between the different species, and the study strove to determine the meaning of these events.

这位科学家写道，“我们发现尖峰信号经常聚集成串”，这表明不只是大量的活动，而是大量的协调活动。在这些时候，真菌似乎有一些重要的事情要告诉彼此。不同物种之间的峰值频率和强度不同，这项研究试图确定这些事件的意义。

<生词学习： vital 重要的>

To do this, the researchers considered the length of words and vowels in English. The average lengths of a vowel sound in the English language, per the report, is 0.3 seconds, and this peculiar data made for fascinating reading. The length of a word in the “fungi” language, it seems, is incredibly similar to the length of a word in human languages. The average English word length is 4.8 spikes (the unit of measurement used in the study), and the spikes in a C. militaris train number 4.7!

为了做到这一点，研究人员考虑了英语单词和元音的长度。根据报告，英语中元音的平均长度是0.3秒，这个奇特的数据读起来很有趣。“真菌”语言中一个单词的长度似乎与人类语言中一个单词的长度极其相似。英语单词的平均长度是4.8个尖峰(研究中使用的测量单位)，而蘑菇话达到了4.7个单位！

<生词学习：fascinating有趣的 >

In sum, these mushrooms aren’t just speaking, but they’re speaking in a manner similar to human speech!

总之，这些蘑菇不只是在说话，而是在以一种类似人类语言的方式说话！

PROTECTION AGAINST ATTACKERS

防范攻击者

These disparate, yet connected, colonies, would need to have some way of communicating for their own survival. The study suggests that this is what they’re doing: should a single mushroom’s state change, perhaps if it’s threatened, then these trains alert the rest of the whole, with electrical impulses running along as they do in our own nervous system.

这些不同的，但联系在一起的群体，为了他们自己的生存，需要一些交流的方式。这项研究表明，这就是它们正在做的事情:如果单个蘑菇的状态发生变化，也许如果它受到威胁，那么这些序列就会警告整个其余的蘑菇，电脉冲就像在我们自己的神经系统中一样运行。

<生词学习：disparate不同的 >

It sounds remarkable, and it is, but it’s not without precedent.

听起来很了不起，确实如此，但也不是没有先例。

<生词学习：remarkable 了不起>

It is understood that plants can communicate and coordinate. Herbal plants will form connections through “runners” that can connect them in the same plant system. Radboud University’s Josef Stuefer tested the communication skills of a clover by investigating the behavior of caterpillars. When a caterpillar ate a leaf from one of the connected plants, the critters that followed them were more unwilling to consume more of the compromised plant.

据了解，植物可以交流和协调。草本植物会通过“邮差”在同一个植物系统中形成连接。拉德布大学的约瑟夫·斯图弗通过调查毛毛虫的行为来测试三叶草的交流技能。当一条毛毛虫吃了一株相连植物的叶子时，跟随它们的动物就更不愿意吃更多受损的植物。

<生词学习：communicate交流 >

Why? Because the clover had sent a sort of defensive distress signal in response to the initial attack!

为什么？因为三叶草已经发出了一种防御求救信号来回应最初的攻击！

<生词学习：response 回应>

Stuefer reported that this action created a chemical reaction, making the rest of the leaves tougher and less appetizing. “This is an early warning system, very much like in military defense,” the researcher said, “each member of the network can receive the external signal of impending herbivore danger and transmit it to the other members of the network.”

Stuefer报道说，这种行为产生了一种化学反应，使其余的叶子变得更硬，更没有食欲。“这是一个早期预警系统，非常像军事防御，”研究人员说，“网络的每个成员都可以接收即将到来的食草动物危险的外部信号，并将其传递给网络的其他成员。”

<生词学习：tough硬 >

It seems reasonable to assume this is part of the purpose of mushrooms’ communication: identifying dangers and reacting to them. As Adamatzky concluded, though, there is still much to be learned before we can truly decode the mushroom language, how sophisticated it really is, and the roots of its true purpose.

似乎有理由假设这是蘑菇交流目的的一部分:识别危险并做出反应。然而，正如Adamatzky总结的那样，在我们能够真正解码蘑菇语言、它到底有多复杂以及它真正目的的根源之前，还有很多东西要学。