The Plant That Counts Its Prey
A venus flytrap will not close on the first touch. It waits. A second touch to its trigger hairs within about twenty seconds closes the trap. A third starts electrical signaling. A fifth touch releases digestive enzymes. The plant is counting, not metaphorically, but in a measurable, electrochemical sense. Each touch generates an action potential, the same type of electrical signal neurons use. The flytrap accumulates these signals and crosses thresholds. Below a certain count, it does nothing. At the right count, it acts. This was confirmed in detail by research published in Current Biology in 2016 by Rainer Hedrich and his team at the University of Würzburg, who showed that the plant's jasmonic acid signaling pathway activates in direct proportion to the number of stimulations received. The flytrap isn't reacting. It's calculating.
