Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Chinese (Simplified)EnglishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseRussianSpanish
No Result
View All Result
FuturoProssimo
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Medicine
  • Society
  • Ambience
  • Spazio
  • Transportation
  • concepts
  • H+
Contact
FuturoProssimo
No Result
View All Result

Read in:
Chinese (Simplified)EnglishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseRussianSpanish

March 20 2021

Researchers developed a plant communication device

Gianluca Ricciodi Gianluca Riccio
in Ambience, Technology
Send to FacebookPin on PinterestSend on TwitterSend on Whatsappon Linkedin
Researchers developed a plant communication device

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.  

Maybe you are also interested

Home Garden, concept of vegetable garden in the drawer

Plants remember periods of drought

Biocollar, the collar that lets you know the needs of your plants

Raman, portable device for detecting plant stress

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 the electrical signals of 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 to talk as if plants 'know' what they are doing," says botany teacher. Elizabeth Van Volkenburgh.

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. 

plants
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: electrodesplants
Previous post

We may have discovered how to reverse brain aging

Next article

Mars missions: could seriously damage astronauts

Collaborate!

We are open to visions about the future. Submit an article, disclose the results of a search or scientific discoveries, shows points of view on a theme, tells about a change.

Contact us

Most read of the week

  • US intelligence analyzes the future, and it doesn't look good at all

    US intelligence analyzes the future, and it doesn't look good at all

    86 shares
    Share 34 Tweet 21
  • CoroNaspresso, Covid tests at home are studied in coffee capsules

    77 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • Physicists at Microsoft think the universe is a self-taught computer

    62 shares
    Share 24 Tweet 15
  • Plants that “exude” metal: can agromining replace mines?

    59 shares
    Share 23 Tweet 15
The last
Robotica

HUMRS, the underwater snake robot begins its tests

concepts

E-Motocompo, rides the ebike that looks like (and has the capacity of) a locker

Society

The Venice Biennale will open without an audience

Medicine

Monoclonal antibodies, treatment makes teeth grow back: animal tests

archive

Next article
Mars missions: could seriously damage astronauts

Mars missions: could seriously damage astronauts

Pocket Guitar, the pick that encloses an entire guitar

Pocket Guitar, the pick that encloses an entire guitar

Facebook

Instagram

Telegram

Twitter

Clubhouse

Near future

Futuroprossimo.it is an Italian futurology resource open since 2006: every day news about the near future. Scientific discoveries, medical research, prototypes, concepts and predictions about the future for free.

Tag

Ambience Architecture Club Communication concepts Advice Economy Energy Events Gadgets The future of yesterday The newspaper of tomorrow Italy Next Medicine Military Weather Robotica Society Spazio Technology transhumanism Transportation Video

The author

Gianluca Riccio, copywriter and journalist - Born in 1975, he is the creative director of an advertising agency, he is affiliated with the Italian Institute for the Future, World Future Society and H +, Network of Italian Transhumanists.

Home / Author / IDEA / archive / Promo on FP

Collaborate! Are you interested in writing a post on Futuroprossimo? Click here for contacts.

Categories

Creative Commons License
This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
© 2021 Futuroprossimo

  • Home
  • Contact
  • archive
  • Technology
  • Medicine
  • Transportation
  • Weather
  • Society
  • Ambience
  • transhumanism

© 2021 Futuroprossimo - Creative Commons License
This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

This site uses cookies. By continuing to read it, you consent to their use.