SerpApi.Org
Moss may well be something that most of us barely give a second thought, but there is far more to this small nonvascular plant than meets the eye. A new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science reports that it displays a surprising amount of electrical activity.
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We already know that many plants generate electricity, and previous studies on moss revealed that things like light, temperature and chemicals can trigger brief electrical spikes. But these were brief snapshots.
This time around, the paper's sole author, computer scientist Andy Adamatzky, decided to take a longer look.
He collected cushions of common rough-stalked feather moss (Brachythecium rutabulum) from the Somerset countryside in southwest England. Back in the lab, he placed the moss on a wet surface inside a transparent, closed container with high humidity and kept it under constant, dim ambient light.
Next, Adamatzky inserted tiny needle electrodes directly into the moss cushions to measure any possible electrical activity. Meanwhile, a data logger ran continuously for 178 hours, more than seven full days.
He then fed the data into computer models to analyze the patterns. His goal was to see whether the electrical activity formed organized patterns that could point to a simple form of information processing.
Decoding the signals
The recording showed that there was a lot going on. "The moss exhibits a rich repertoire of electrical events," Adamatzky wrote in his paper.
The moss produced a variety of electrical signals. There were fast spikes that traveled across the cushion at approximately 0.2 millimeters per second, steadier, rhythmic fluctuations that moved at around 0.02 millimeters per second, and slow voltage shifts that traveled at less than 0.005 millimeters per second.
These signals did not happen everywhere at the same time. When a spike was recorded, it appeared at one electrode before moving across the gap to the next one. This suggests that the signals traveled across the cushion rather than occurring everywhere at once. "Electrical activity is not spatially static; it propagates at multiple speeds and time scales."
Although the signals appear to travel across the moss, Adamatzky is cautious at this stage. "The interpretation of these patterns as coordinated or propagating activity remains provisional."
Green technology
However, if these electrical waves are a form of information processing, he suggests that moss could potentially be used as part of a living computer or a biological sensor. This kind of technology could have a wide range of applications, such as biohybrid sensors, living building materials that can detect changes in their surroundings and other forms of unconventional computing based on living organisms.
Written for you by our author Paul Arnold, edited by Lisa Lock, and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Egan—this article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive. If this reporting matters to you, please consider a donation (especially monthly).
More information: Andy Adamatzky, Multi-scale electrical activity and signal propagation in the moss Brachythecium rutabulum, Royal Society Open Science (2026). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.252341
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This story was originally published on Phys.org.
