Joanne Yelle, age 11, of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, for her question:

Do plants really have emotions?

First we heard that plants detest hard rock and enjoy sweet music. Then we heard that a potted plant winced when a lobster was dumped into boiling water. These ghastly rumors are enough to put a person off vegetables for life. However, as so often happens, the scientific facts behind these reports were hashed and bashed out of shape. It is true that researchers are testing to see whether plants react to certain forms of energy around them. But somehow human emotions got mixed into the experiments.

We know that plants react to warmth and sunlight. However, they do not purr in the sunshine and shiver in the cold. This is impossible because they have no nervious systems to react as we do. Some tests suggest that they react in their own mysterious ways to the energy of sound waves. At present, the lobster experiment is uncelar and certainly unproven. But a plant has no possible equipment to react with shock, fear or any other human type emotion. So we can eat out vegetables without wincing. They don't feel a thing.