Bionic Plants

Scientists have found a way to transform a spinach plant into a bomb detector.

18:15 01 November 2016

Scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology embedded tiny tubes in spinach plants to transform them into a bomb detector. The tubes are designed to pick up nitro-aromatics, which are found in landmines and other buried munitions. The information gathered by the tubes is then sent wirelessly to a handheld device. To read the signal, researchers shine a laser onto the leaf, which prompts the embedded nanotubes to emit near-infrared fluorescent light. 

 

Co-author Prof Michael Strano, from MIT in Cambridge, US, said: "Our paper outlines how one could engineer plants like this to detect virtually anything,"

 

"The plants could be use for defence applications, but also to monitor public spaces for terrorism related activities, since we show both water and airborne detection,"

 

"Such plants could be used to monitor groundwater seepage from buried munitions or waste that contains nitro-aromatics."

 

The study is published in the journal Nature Materials.