Near future
No Result
View All Result
October 4, 2023
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+
Understand, anticipate, improve the future.
CES2023 / Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine
Near future
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+

Understand, anticipate, improve the future.

No Result
View All Result
Environment , Technology

Researchers developed a plant communication device

The University of Singapore develops an electrode capable of receiving and sending signals to plants: the developments are innumerable.

March 20 2021
Gianluca RiccioGianluca Riccio
⚪ 4 minutes
Share16Pin5Tweet10SendShare3ShareShare2

READ IN:

A team of researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore has designed a device to communicate with plants. More or less. The tiny electrode can both detect and send electrical signals to a small carnivorous plant and elicit a response.

What do plants "know"?

Playing with plant electrical signals could open up many possibilities, the team argues: they could allow data to be monitored for information on plant health before problems develop. Signals could potentially also be sent to the plant to stimulate it.  

A year ago researchers in Alabama observed the ability of plants to communicate with each other via electrical signals sent through the subsoil. I talked about it here.

"Climate change threatens food security around the world. By monitoring electrical signals from plants, we may be able to detect possible warning signs and anomalies," declares Chen Xiaodong, first author of the study.

Plants
Chen Xiaodong, first author of the study

Used for agricultural purposes, the system can let farmers know when a disease is occurring even before the effects appear on crops. Harnessing this knowledge could mean better and healthier harvests.

Of course it is important not to fall into the trap of thinking of plant communication as anthropomorphic, and therefore misunderstand it. 

"A big mistake people make is talking as if plants 'know' what they are doing," says botany professor. Elizabeth Van Volkenburgh.

The article continues after the related links

Xylella, the story of the four-legged task force that helps us stop it

Neoplants causes a plant to capture toxic compounds from the environments

Biology teachers, researchers and students all make the same mistake. I would much prefer to say that a plant hears and responds, rather than the plant 'knows'

To detect these signals, the researchers developed a small, lightweight electrode, inspired by those used to perform echocardiograms. They glued it with hydrogel on the surface of the leaves of a small carnivorous plant, the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipola).

When the tiny electrode, just 3 millimeters in diameter, was attached to the Venus flytrap, it successfully recorded the plant's electrical signals. 

plant
Photo by Prudence Earl on Unsplash

Vegetable robots? 

"Plant communication" is not a one-way street: as mentioned, we should also be able to send pulses.

Using a smartphone, the researchers did just that, sending a pulse to the fly trap that caused it to close the leaves on command.

By connecting the plant to a robotic arm, the team created a hybrid robot capable of picking up a small thread using the leaves and their long, delicate extensions.  

Plants are inherently modular, take on a wide range of shapes, forms and capacities, and "can be isolated and installed on a variety of platforms," ​​the team writes in their article, published in Nature Electronics.

Integrated with current “flexible” electronics, such modularity could potentially be used to build robots, sensors and sanitary devices for plant-based systems. 

Or for a rather realistic version of the "Plants vs Zombies" app.

Tags: electrodesplant

Latest news

  • Humane unveils AI Pin at Paris Fashion Week: an assistant to wear
  • Goodbye needles: drugs from the cheeks through mini patches inspired by octopuses
  • Droneliner, a giant 350-ton drone that changes air transport
  • Sleeping standing up with Giraffenap: the future we didn't deserve
  • Babylonian table with Pythagorean theorem discovered... 1000 years before him
  • LK-99, new episode: is it really superconductive at room temperature?
  • Comment la CVP Impack Machine de Sparck Technologies peut Revolutionner l'Industrie de l'Emballage
  • Nobel Prize for Medicine to the creators of the mRNA techniques behind the Covid vaccines
  • SciMatch: take a selfie and meet your soulmate
  • The future glucose monitoring? A new, ingenious sweat sensor


GPT Chat Megaeasy!

Concrete guide for those approaching this artificial intelligence tool, also designed for the school world: many examples of applications, usage indications and ready-to-use instructions for training and interrogating Chat GPT.

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff

Enter the Telegram channel of Futuroprossimo, click here. Or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon e LinkedIn.

FacebookTwitterInstagramTelegramLinkedInMastodonPinterestTikTok

The daily tomorrow.


Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Gadgets
  • concepts
  • Design
  • Medicine
  • Spazio
  • Robotica
  • Work
  • Transports
  • Energy
  • Edition Francaise
  • Deutsche Ausgabe
  • Japanese version
  • English Edition
  • Portuguese Edition
  • Read more
  • Spanish edition

Subscribe to our newsletter

  • The Editor
  • Advertising on FP
  • Privacy Policy

© 2023 Near future - Creative Commons License
This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

No Result
View All Result
Understand, anticipate, improve the future.
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Energy
  • Transports
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • H+