If fungi are talking to bacterium, do we smell a new medium of communication?

It is spooky to contemplate that everything around us is talking. As if it were not bad enough that all the gadgets in our homes and offices probably carry on secret conversations thanks to the Internet of Things — and plants do the same naturally — now microorganisms have been found to be part of this silent cacophony.

So much so that a group of scientists avers that the most spoken language in the world is terpene —which it is not a tongue at all but a sort of nose, as the communication is via smell.

Communication in this medium is evidently easy as living things of varied dimensions not only “converse” among their own kind in ‘Terpene’, microorganisms go a step further and talk with other motes too. As those scientists have observed a variety of fungus chatting up a type of bacterium, there isn’t a scintilla of doubt that there is a chemistry to communication.

Considering these polyglot organisms vastly outnumber human beings, and there are at least 50,000 distinct terpene compounds found in plants and fungi, and many more in microorganisms, the sheer volume of inaudible communication being conducted everywhere is mind-boggling.

It gives rise to the thought of whether we should try a new tack altogether when reaching out into space in search of other living beings, as terpenes could be the cosmic Esperanto.