The secret vibrational language of nature

Jul 19, 2024

When a 9.1 magnitude undersea quake off Indonesia triggered the 2004 tsunami that killed over 225,000 people, many communities received zero warning. Yet eyewitness accounts report buffalo by the beach stampeding to the top of a hill, dogs refusing to go outdoors, flamingos abandoning low-lying nesting areas, and elephants running for higher ground several hours before the wall of water decimated coastlines.

Could it be that these creatures were reacting to fluctuations in atmospheric frequencies, beyond human detection?

From the natural disaster-detecting powers of animals to the secret vibrational language of bees, the loud-as-as-tanker (and yet inaudible to humans) whale calls that can travel hundreds of miles underwater, and why plants grow quicker when they hear your voice, we're tuning in to the magical world of natural frequencies...

The healing power of a bee’s buzz

Not just captivating, the vibrational buzz of bees could also be healing.

Bees naturally hum in the key of C, with an average buzz frequency of 270Hz. Some people believe that this vibrational frequency possesses therapeutic potential and unique healing properties, by lowering cortisol levels to reduce stress, relieve anxiety and bring about an overall sense of wellbeing.[1]

It’s an idea that’s caught on in Slovenia, a country with a time-honoured tradition of using the sounds of bees buzzing to calm and soothe.[2]

Slovenians use bee therapy (AKA apitherapy) as a balm for daily stressors and to boost mental health, with many beekeepers even placing beds or hammocks next to hives to feel the full effects. “In old times, people used to put beds at the back of the apiary, behind the hives,” Beekeeper Andreja Stankovic told the BBC. “But we wanted to have the bed right above the bees, so you can sense their energy and totally immerse in their frequency.”

How to speak honeybee

While they might be known for their buzz, bees are thought to be completely deaf.

Although, according to Professor Martin Bencsik, this lack of hearing is no barrier to bee communication, who ‘speak’ to each other via vibrations – and pick up on vibrations through their antenna and legs. (Bees aren’t the only ones who can pick up sound vibrations without an eardrum. Fruit flies, snakes, frogs and birds do it too, using antennae or bones instead).[3]

By placing a vibration-sensitive device called an accelerometer inside a honeybee hive, Professor Bencsik was able “to gain insights into the many sounds which occur day and night within the colony.”[4] Listening to the hive recordings, the professor began to notice patterns and complex social interactions between the bees – all communicated via vibrations. Bencsik also used the accelerometer to capture the waveforms of a honeybee swarm leaving the nest.

Mesmerized by these recordings, award-winning artist and sculptor Wolfgang Buttress used digital imaging software to translate honeybee vibrations into beautiful visuals and an accompanying bee soundscape for the immersive exhibition, Bees: A Story of Survival.

The “hypnotic experience of an entire honeybee colony reverberating through his body” inspired Buttress to create music that used honeybees as the main musicians. From the vibrations produced by the bees’ famous ‘waggle dance’ to queen honeybees’ so-called ‘quacking’, Buttress created a series of musical compositions combining field recordings of bee colonies with instruments like the cello and the harp.

How flowers talk to bees via electric signals

Have you ever wondered how bees know which flowers have nectar left to harvest? According to legendary naturalist David Attenborough, plants cleverly communicate with bees via tiny electric fields.

“Plants are rooted to the ground and have a small negative charge,” he explains.[5] “The higher up the plant you go, the greater the electric charge. This creates an electric field around the flower.”

Although this tiny electric field is invisible to the human eye, in this clip, Attenborough uses electrodes to pick up the energy emitted by the field and convert it into a sound that we can hear.

In contrast to the negative charge of the flower, bees have a positive charge, says Attenborough. In the clip, a bee approaches the flower, causing the charge fields around the flower and the bee to interact, and the sound to change. When the bee lands on the flower, “the positive and negative fields immediately cancel eachother out,” says Attenborough. And, as this happens, there are two very surprising consequences. “Firstly,” he says, “the plant’s negatively charged pollen actually jumps across onto the positively charged bee. Secondly, the plant has a changed electrical field, and when another bee comes along, it detects this altered electrical signal and avoids the flower. The plant is in effect telling the bee that it has no nectar and to come back later.” Incredible, right?!

If walls plants could talk

Recent studies using highly sensitive sound receivers have shown that plants make spontaneous sounds and even release sound emissions from their xylem.[6]

Researchers at The University of Western Australia discovered that the roots of some plants make regular clicking noises to ‘speak’ to each other.[7] They also found that young corn roots suspended in water moved towards the source of a continuous sound emitted within the same frequency range of the clicking noise the roots themselves made.

The same scientists concluded that plants are also attuned to the sound of water itself (as opposed to its physical presence), by playing a recording of running water to growing pea plants. "Even if the actual water isn't there and it's just the mere sound of it, they will grow towards it," said Dr Gagliano.[8]

Other random sounds, like white noise, failed to have the same effect. "The experiment showed there is a selectivity in response to sounds around them, and water of course is ecologically relevant," Dr Gagliano said, adding that it suggested there is another system of cognition beyond neurons and brains that humans have yet to consider.

Could the vibration of your voice help plants grow?

If you’ve ever been known to whisper sweet nothings to your prized rose bush or chant words of encouragement to your tomato plants, your efforts to help your garden grow could be backed by science.

“Plants probably don’t hear like we do,” Dr Dominique Hes, biophilia expert and lead researcher at Horticulture Innovation Australia’s Plant Life Balance, told The Guardian.[9] “But some research shows that speaking nicely to plants will support their growth, whereas yelling at them won’t. Rather than the meaning of words, however, this may have more to do with vibrations and volume. Plants react favourably to low levels of vibrations, around 115-250hz being ideal.”

“Smithsonian and Nasa show that mild vibrations increase growth in plants while harsher, stronger vibrations have a negative effect,” Dr Hes explains. “The vibrations improve communication and photosynthesis, which improves growth and the ability to fight infection. You could say the plants are happy!”

There’s even evidence that plants prefer female voices over male.

In a month-long study, the Royal Horticultural Society played a set of tomato plants recordings of both men and women reading from literary or scientific works.

By the end of the month, the plants that had heard women’s voices grew an average of an inch taller. The winning tomato that grew two inches taller than the rest had listened to none other than Sarah Darwin, the great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin.[10] Fittingly, Charles Darwin himself suspected a connection between vibration and plant growth, getting his son to play his bassoon to seedlings.[11]

In his 1973 bestseller, Supernature, South African botanist Lyall Watson discussed the effect of music on plants, noting that science showed how “geraniums grow faster and taller to the accompaniment of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos,” perhaps because of Bach’s careful composition of certain frequencies within his piece. “Bacteria are affected in the same way,” wrote Watson, “multiplying under the influence of certain frequencies and dying when subject to others.”

Learning to speak on fungi frequency

Fungi might seem like silent dwellers of the forest floor, but research suggests they could be babbling away in their own mycological language – and that it could even have some similarities to our own.

Professor Andrew Adamatzky from the University of the West of England’s computing laboratory analysed the electrical spikes generated by four species of fungi – enoki, split gill, ghost and caterpillar – and found patterns that bear a striking structural similarity to human speech.[12]

Adamatzky’s research discovered waves of electrical activity resembling vocabularies of up to 50 words, and thought to potentially be the fungi’s way of reporting newly discovered sources of attractants and repellants to other parts of their mycelia.

The loudest animals you’ll never hear

The “loudest animals you’ll never hear,”[13] whales can make super powerful sounds that travel hundreds of miles underwater – and yet are inaudible to humans because of their ultra-low frequency.

In fact, the calls of Antarctic blue whales and fin whales are on a par with the noise created by a gigantic oil tanker roaring through the ocean.

Australian Antarctic Division acoustician Dr Brian Miller explains how, even though we can’t hear them, we can feel these ‘infrasonic’ whale calls.

“If you were in the water next to a singing whale you would likely feel the sounds as vibrations,” Dr Miller said. “If you’ve ever been in traffic next to someone with a very loud sound system, that’s what the vibrations would feel like – you’d be feeling the bass.”

Seismic signals

From the golden mole to the elephant seal and a whole spectrum of insects, amphibians, reptiles and fish, many creatures use vibrations in the ground to find prey, mates, or establish territories – including elephants.

According to a study in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA), elephants can generate seismic waves in the ground through foot stomping and low-frequency rumbling (around 20 hertz) that can travel nearly 20 miles along the surface of the Earth.[14] And scientists believe they can also sense these underground vibrations through their feet, alerting them to distant danger.

"Seismic waves could travel from their toenails to the ear via bone conduction, or through somatosensory receptors in the foot similar to ones found in the trunk,” explains the author of the study, Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell.

We already know that elephants in search of water can detect and move towards thunderstorms from huge distances. O'Connell-Rodwell believes that could be because the herd has sensed underground vibrations generated by thunder.

Animal instinct

Other animals – elephants included – appear to magically detect not only thunderstorms, but natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes and tsunamis, too, fleeing the threat hours before humans are aware of the impending peril.

When a 9.1 magnitude undersea quake off Indonesia triggered the 2004 tsunami that killed over 225,000 people, many communities received zero warning. Yet eyewitness accounts report buffalo by the beach stampeding to the top of a hill, dogs refusing to go outdoors, cats moving inland, flamingos abandoning low-lying nesting areas – and elephants running for higher ground hours before the wall of water decimated coastlines.[15] Many survivors put their lucky escape down to deciding to run along with these fleeing animals.

A study into how animals could predict disasters involved recording the movement patterns of farm animals in an earthquake-prone region of central Italy. The researchers discovered that the farm animals began to change their behaviour up to 20 hours before an earthquake. “Whenever the monitored farm animals were collectively 50% more active for more than 45 minutes at a stretch, the researchers predicted an earthquake with a magnitude above 4.0. Seven out of eight strong earthquakes were correctly predicted in this way,” says the BBC.[16]

It’s thought that electromagnetic fluctuations (shifts in atmospheric electric charges), which can start weeks before an earthquake, could be behind changes in animal behaviour.

Scientists like Matthew Blackett of Coventry University theorise that animals could have evolved a seismic escape mechanism. "Perhaps they detect pressure waves before earthquakes arrive, perhaps they detect changes in electric field as fault lines when rock starts to compress. Animals also contain a lot of iron, which is sensitive to magnetism and electric fields,” he says.[17]

Whether these theories prove right or not, it’s clear we humans have a lot to learn from the natural world and its weird and wonderful frequencies.