Can you hear the corn grow? Yes

There's an old farmer's tale that says, "On a quiet night you can hear the corn grow." It may seem funny, but Douglas Cook at New York University and colleagues Roger Elmore and Justin McMechan, at the University of Nebraska, were able to use contact microphones to directly record the sounds of corn growing. Corn is the leading grain crop in the U.S. with more than 350 million metric tons harvested yearly. But a lack of understanding about the mechanics involved in wind-induced corn stalk failure has hindered further improvements in corn production. Crop scientists have been working on this problem for more than 100 years, albeit with only marginal success. Now, by applying mechanical engineering tools and techniques, a group of engineers and plant scientists led by Cook are making headway addressing this problem as well as discovering other issues related to plant growth and development.