Grow Your Own Security- Bomb Detecting Plants

Picture this at an airport, perhaps in as soon as four years: A terrorist rolls through the sliding doors of a terminal with a bomb packed into his luggage (or his underwear). All of a sudden, the leafy, verdant gardenscape ringing the gates goes white as a sheet. That’s the proteins inside the plants telling authorities that they’ve picked up the chemical trace of the guy’s arsenal.

It only took a small engineering nudge to deputize a plant’s natural, evolutionary self-defense mechanisms for threat detection. “Plants can’t run and hide,” says June Medford, the biologist who’s spent the last seven years figuring out how to deputize plants for counterterrorism. “If a bug comes by, it has to respond to it. And it already has the infrastructure to respond.”

www.wired.com...
Intriguing to say the least, another example of mimicking nature for the best designs. Who would have ever thought about plants being natural detectives, capable of providing evidence to any perturbations or chemical changes in it's environment. So plants provide food, shelter ,medicine, and now security. Maybe we can now legalize the kush for security reasons. "No sir officer, I wasn't going to smoke it, it's my guard plant!"
Not sure why the kush plant is used for the pic here, it appears various plants contain the ability.

The goal of the Biological Input/Output Systems (BIOS) program was to develop a toolbox for the rational design and engineering of genetic regulatory circuits, signal transduction pathways, and metabolism. The utility of the toolbox components was demonstrated via the engineering of specific model laboratory organisms. Categories demonstrated include (1) the redesign of signal transduction pathways in plants and bacteria so they can be used together to make new functional signal transduction circuits; (2) the creation of logic circuits constructed out of components responsible for DNA rearrangements; and (3) the regulation of metabolic pathways via genetic regulatory and signal transduction components.

Eventually, Medford expects to bring the bomb-detecting plants to market through genetically modified seedlings. Whatever it costs, it’s got to be less than the $100,000 to $200,000 that a backscatter “junk scanner” can run

www.darpa.mil...
Well I would much rather pass by a plant than get bathed with x-rays or violated by the hands of TSA. This should save bukoos of money on security too.
Here is a link to the details of the study:
Study

Peace,
spec

Great find ! Mother nature comes to the rescue again ! I always say the hardest problems are solved by the easiest solutions ! Mother F'kn nature you never seem to cease to amaze me. !!! This is fantastic and i would take this over the TSA any day

reply to post by seedofchucky


Helly Yeah! Star and Flag OP.

TSA Pat down, rape scanner, or walk through a small line of shrubs? Hmmm. Tough one!

Thanks seedofchuckey and BRL!

I wanted to add some additional support to the amazing properties of plants. There was a book written called The Secret Lives Of PlantsBOOK
which revealed some fascinating insight to plants and our relationship with them.




Peace,
spec

Heh, what are they gonna do next?
I dig.
I want my bomb-detection weed RIGHT NOW!

reply to post by drakus

Heh, what are they gonna do next?

spec

Pardon mua...bump for good measure.