Just When You Think Venus Flytraps Couldn’t Be More Weird
The notorious bug-eating Venus flytrap just got more mysterious after scientists discovered the plants generate magnetic fields. That’s something humans and animals do, but it’s not the norm for plants, according a team of scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany.
The team’s findings were published Jan. 14 in Scientific Reports, which said the data raises questions about the capabilities of plants.
“In the future, magnetometry may be used to study long-distance electrical signaling in a variety of plant species,” the report said.
The magnetic field produced by Venus flytraps is “one of the first such fields ever detected in plants,” according to Live Science.
Researchers made the discovery using a procedure “a little like performing an MRI scan in humans,” according to a news release from Johannes Gutenberg University.
They determined the magnetic field is generated as the Venus flytraps digest the prey trapped in leaf lobes, which are “electrically excitable.” The field is faint, “millions of times weaker than the Earth’s magnetic field.”
“The signal magnitude recorded is similar to what is observed during surface measurements of nerve impulses in animals,” physicist Anne Fabricant said in the release.
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