This plant can count.

• Position: SCIENCE - Venus flytrap - Brief article

The Venus flytrap is pretty unusual. Unlike most plants, which get their food by soaking up nutrients from the soil, it traps insects between two large leaves and "digests" them by producing enzymes. But how does the carnivorous plant know it's dinnertime? By counting, according to a new study. German researchers found that the plant actually counts (silently, of course) how often the pointy trigger hairs on its leaves are touched by prey. The first touch puts the plant on alert. The second causes it to clamp its jawlike leaves down on the...