Bomb-Sniffing Bionic Plants Could Look for Pollution

Bionic plants can detect explosives in real time and could be the future of environmental monitoring and urban farming. The spinach plants have carbon-nano tube-based nano particles in their leaves that give off infrared light and are sensitive to the presence of nitro aromatics, key components of several explosives. If these chemicals are present in groundwater, they are absorbed by the roots and transported to the leaves, where they cause the infrared emissions of the so-called "nano-sensor" to decrease. A detector that is similar in complexity to a smartphone can register this change in emissions, the researchers said. In tests with the nitro-aromatic picric acid, this dip was detected within 10 minutes of the roots taking up the chemical, according to the study. The researchers said their "nano-bionic" approach is much faster than previous genetic engineering methods that rely on monitoring changes like wilting or de-greening that can take hours or days and aren't easy to detect electronically. The scientists also used a wild breed of spinach rather than special lab-grown varieties. The researchers said they are confident they can replicate the method with a broad range of plant species that are well-adapted to their environments. This innovation is cool, because I like how they can detect pollution by a plant.