Plant Nanobionics

I've never heard of anything like this before but a team of scientists have created something they call plant nanobionics.

They've taken live plants, spinach plants in the case of this study, and 'interfaced' them with nano particles that give functions to the plants.

In one case they embedded infrared censors that allowed the communication of information from the plant to a smartphone. They also embedded sensors that allowed the plant to detect chemical contamination in water as well as nitroaromatics(chemicals in bombs?) and relay the information back using the infrared communications system.

www.nature.com...

Researchgate link

Abstract

Plant nanobionics aims to embed non-native functions to plants by interfacing them with specifically designed nanoparticles. Here, we demonstrate that living spinach plants (Spinacia oleracea) can be engineered to serve as self-powered pre-concentrators and autosamplers of analytes in ambient groundwater and as infrared communication platforms that can send information to a smartphone.

The plants employ a pair of near-infrared fluorescent nanosensors-single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) conjugated to the peptide Bombolitin II to recognize nitroaromatics via infrared fluorescent emission, and polyvinyl-alcohol functionalized SWCNTs that act as an invariant reference signal-embedded within the plant leaf mesophyll.

As contaminant nitroaromatics are transported up the roots and stem into leaf tissues, they accumulate in the mesophyll, resulting in relative changes in emission intensity. The real-time monitoring of embedded SWCNT sensors also allows residence times in the roots, stems and leaves to be estimated, calculated to be 8.3 min (combined residence times of root and stem) and 1.9 min mm(-1) leaf, respectively. These results demonstrate the ability of living, wild-type plants to function as chemical monitors of groundwater and communication devices to external electronics at standoff distances.

So, this seems like some science fiction stuff to me. I imagine there's a million applications for this.

I do wonder what kind of negative consequences this could have on the environment and ecosystems if it were to be widely deployed. It's unclear what happens to the nanoparticles when the plant dies and what effect it might have if significant amounts of these were released into the environment.

Still, it's a pretty amazing technology.

Plants are not dumb, they have a sort of intelligence. Their evolution comes from ancestors that predate humans by a very long time. They cannot run and hide, when they sense something either through signals or communication with other plants they quickly create and release plant defense chemistry to help protect themselves from herbivores. Some of these plant defense chemistries we use as antivirals and antimicrobials, plant chemistry has been used for a very long time to help humans fight diseases. But.....if you take a medicine at the wrong time, it can make you sick. If you have a blood clotting disorder, don't eat Kale, it stimulates clotting as many other plant chemistries can do. Kale knows what the hell it is doing.

It is impressive that they are able to embed a chip in the plant to try to understand it's language, actually they should use this knowledge to learn how to interpret the signals they send in the electrolytes of the damp soils or determine what the chemical scents in the air mean. Plants have multiple forms of communication methods, if we could understand what they say we would learn they swear at humans a lot.

a reply to: dug88

Intriguing....but the last thing i want in animals food supply are needless nanos. Worst case scenario, grey good. Most likely scenario: toxic effects.

a reply to: dug88

Botanist:
"Doesn't seem to have a central nervous system.."

Assistant:
"Then how does it move?"

Botanist:
"All plants move, and they don't usually pull themselves out of the ground and chase you!"

— "Day of the Triffids", 1962.

Man was not meant to meddle in such things.😂

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: dug88

Intriguing....but the last thing i want in animals food supply are needless nanos. Worst case scenario, grey good. Most likely scenario: toxic effects.

The world is full of natural nanos, it is unnatural ones that we should beware of. It seems it would be easier to try to interpret how to use natural nanos than to create artificial ones. I would guess the nanos they are talking about is just special chemical/mineral complexes that can hold and release programable info. Like a crystal can contain data, these nanos can be programed to communicate with technology. Something that a good farmer in tune with nature already can do with his crops. Women seem to sense the needs of the plants better than guys do, but they mostly concentrate on flowers and are very good at distinguishing fragrances which is a signal.

a reply to: dug88
This could have so many applications-it is essentially hacking plants,and being able to tell them to do stuff.

I want a modified venus fly trap exoskeleton with neuro link muscle controls.

I want symbiotic lung algae which starts producing oxygen when I am at high altitutes or over exerted.

And a zero G modified bamboo cell line with all manner of built in sensors,for building space stations.

Imagine if you could bio hack a plant to enable it to be able to grow on Mars,and start producing terraforming gasses.
That would be fun.




Of course there is probably a big downside if this tech gets out into the wild and starts altering other plants.
It could all get a bit Day of the Triffids.

originally posted by: Silcone Synapse
a reply to: dug88


Of course there is probably a big downside if this tech gets out into the wild and starts altering other plants.
It could all get a bit Day of the Triffids.

Exactly! Will we EVER learn!!??? 😵

a reply to: dug88

Interesting, this is pretty crazy! Adding plants to the "smart grid"? What's next!?

The thread title rang a bell with me and I looked back to find this thread I made a few years ago:
Swedish Scientists Create First Ever Plant-Machine Hybrid

In that scenario, Swedish scientists essentially altered the plant so that they could control colors within the plant by adjusting voltage. Thought I would share since it is somewhat related

originally posted by: dug88
They've taken live plants, spinach plants in the case of this study, and 'interfaced' them with nano particles that give functions to the plants.

Greeaaaaaaat...

a reply to: dug88

I found this very interesting many years ago. It really makes you wonder.

a reply to: dug88

I found this very interesting many years ago. It really makes you wonder.

a reply to: FamCore

Cool thanks for sharing your thread. The paper in your thread almost seems like earlier attempts at the same kind of technology through different means. I wonder if the two could be combined some way? Nano particles for sensors and communications, then use the plant itself as a processor through the technology mentioned in your thread.

I'm thinking Day Of The Triffids, or that movie with Mark Wahlberg..The Happening.

Interesting but...

This is fascinating. I'm not sure it should be done, but it's fascinating.

I've seen this movie, and it doesn't end well for us, but the plants really like it. In every movie, the subject escapes containment. Apparently people are horrible at imagining all the creative ways in which new species can react to their environment.

Now imagine this: A new synthesis between machine and plant in which the plants could not only think and conspire, but be mobile.

I think that if we could slow down our perception to the scale of life at the plant level, it would appear a violent and brutal struggle for space and light and nutrient, a constant battle.

I read a book about 45 years ago called "Supernature". One segment detailed an experiment where plants were in different rooms and each had measuring electrodes attached to it. In one room, live shrimp were dropped into boiling water, and BOTH of the plants register a response to the event. So, there is awareness far greater than response to environment.

I recall reading something from this site years back about how the mitochondrial network spans the globe underground and is both ancient and sentient. Imagine being able to communicate with it and what it might have to say.

originally posted by: StratosFear
I recall reading something from this site years back about how the mitochondrial network spans the globe underground and is both ancient and sentient. Imagine being able to communicate with it and what it might have to say.

I think it would say..GTFO, or damn you!! damn you all to hell!

a reply to: dug88

When your tree is watching you, monitoring your ever move in a kind of day of the triffids crossed with 1984 crossed with big corporations.

When the plants monitory how much CO2 you breath out, how much O2 you breath in, when you have to pay for the very air you breath because some future corporation say's they own it because it is a product of the plants that they will then also own.

There are undoubtedly benefits but you always have to err on the side of caution were such developments are concerned.

a reply to: LABTECH767

www.rexresearch.com...

You will not believe the above nutter

a reply to: dug88

Interesting but scary too. I currently read a book "secret life of trees" and from what I learned there, I ask myself what about the mycelium network that every forest has.

Will this mycelium network be disturbed? It's known that planted trees never really spread out their roots sideways as far as natural grown trees do

These trees share sugar between each other,iin one example an over 100 year old tree stump was kept alive by the neighbor trees pumping sugar solutions to it.

What will happen when these nanofied plants connect to the mycelium network