Fascinating discovery about the vibrations of sound from my reading

Hello everybody, I came across a very fascinating discovery that led me to do a bit of digging for more information in the wee hours of the morning. I was reading a novel called House Rules by Jodi Picoult, about a high school kid who has Asperger’s syndrome, a developmental disorder on the high-functioning end of the Autism spectrum, which causes a person to have little or no ability to interact with his/her peers in social situations, have a very restricted range of interests, has a sensitivity to light, touch, smell, and sound. Many times, they don’t understand a person’s body language, or the figurative meanings of speach. They often talk in a monotone, or overly loud. Many people with Asperger’s syndrom hold down successful jobs, and have made significant contributions to society according to the author’s extensive research for the novel, and Autism speaks, https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/asperger-syndrome.
In House Rules, Jacob Hunt, Picoult’s character with Asperger’s Syndrome sticks to a strict daily routine, and he is highly organized, from the colors of his clothes, to the color of the day. If his routine or patterns are changed without notice, he suffers a severe meltdown. His behaviors and his obsession with forensic crime-scene analysis makes the cops see him as the prime suspect in the murder of Jess Ogilvy, his social skills tutor. I’m not writing this post as a book review, though I may very well do that in a different post; however, there was one thing toward the end of the book that fascinated me. Jacob’s mother makes a statement that he can hear plants dying. Jacob tells his mother that “they scream.” This particular end to the chapter I just finished made me do a little digging into the sound plants make when they die. According to Emma Hunt, Jacob’s mother, she found out that plants emit Ethylene gas, as they die. I found this fascinating, because the link between Jacob’s sensitivity and the vibration of plants as they die, was a fascinating twist on my interest in the vibration of sound.
I did a search for “the sound of plants dying”, and I came across a blog post, on tumbler, about the sound corn stalks make when they are dying of thurst. To read this article please visit http://uberfacts.tumblr.com/post/14092156645/a-thirsty-plant-will-literally-cry-for-help.
Have you ever come across a fascinating tidbit or fact in your reading, whether it be a novel or some other material, or in your everyday interactions with others that caught your attention and you wanted to learn more? Please feel free to share your interesting discoveries in the comments below.