Bionic roses implanted with electronic circuits
Every rose has its thorn – but roses grown in a Swedish lab have transistors and electrodes too.
Researchers at Linköping University have created bionic roses by incorporating plant-compatible electronic materials into them. One of their modified roses has simple digital circuits running through its stem: another’s leaf changes colour when a voltage is applied.
The scientists want to make tools for biologists to record or regulate plant physiology — the plant equivalent of medical implants such as pacemakers. Electronic components might also be a way to engineer plants instead of manipulating their DNA.
Source & further reading:
http://www.nature.com/news/bionic-roses-implanted-with-electronic-circuits-1.18851
Image: roses have been infiltrated with conductive polymers in their leaves or stems.
Credit: Eliot Gomez/Linköping University.
#bionicroses #scitech
My Alma Mater. Cool dudes.
ReplyDeleteMonsanto might need to be worried :)
ReplyDeleteImagine a bionic florists with bioluminescent plants. The veins in the leaves glowing eerily, green, blue, red. People may think they are radioactive
ReplyDeleteInteresting as just this morning I was reading about how the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science researchers have, for the first time, harnessed the molecular machinery of living systems to power an integrated circuit from ATP, the energy currency of life. http://bit.ly/1QaOr51
ReplyDeleteTrey Pitsenberger -- great, we're one step closer to living in The Matrix. (Although self-powered medical devices would be pretty keen.)
ReplyDeleteJohn Bump some would say we already are :-)
ReplyDeleteTrey Pitsenberger -- physicists spend at least some time trying to prove we're not living in a holographic or other simulation, and that our perceived reality is actually real. But at the end of the day, a robust flying spaghetti monster reality would be indistinguishable from what we actually experience. It's a neat problem.
ReplyDeleteJohn Bump It comes down to what we define as "real". If we do live in a holographic simulation then that is as real as the world we think we know. I agree it's a neat problem and one that is fun to work on.
ReplyDelete