LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Leila Fadel. Mushrooms - they keep to themselves, don't move around, don't prey on others, but they might just talk. A scientist at the University of the West of England inserted tiny electrodes into four species of fungi and discovered that shrooms seem to use electrical impulses to communicate internally, say, about food or an injury. The impulse clusters are so intricate, they actually resemble words. A mushroom's vocabulary - about 50 words. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.