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Gold Nanoparticles Turn Trees Into Streetlights
An anonymous reader writes "Street lights are an important part of our urban infrastructure — they light our way home and make the roads safe at night. But what if we could create natural street lights that don't need electricity to power them? A group of scientists in Taiwan recently discovered that placing gold nanoparticles within the leaves of trees causes them to give off a luminous reddish glow. The idea of using trees to replace street lights is an ingenious one — not only would it save on electricity costs and cut CO2 emissions, but it could also greatly reduce light pollution in major cities."
I welcome our reddish glowing leafy overlords.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Make it occur naturally.
Or rather - aren't there some kinds of mushrooms and other flora that glow in the dark? Why not just splice that plant with a tree. I know, I use the term splice like its an easy task.
Yeah because mining gold and refining it and the turning it into nano-particles takes zero energy....
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I'd be chopping down trees everywhere!!!!
Nah, I know the particles are so small it would make the effort a waste of time. That aside, on a serious note, what happens to the "streetlights" when the Fall comes each year?
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
The nice thing about street lights, though, is that they don't fall off every autumn.
A group of scientists in Taiwan recently discovered that placing gold nanoparticles within the leaves of trees, causes them to give off a luminous reddish glow.
Even better, a group of US capitalists has discovered that setting fire to the trees produces an even more luminous glow, at no cost to the company, keeping the gold available for executive bonuses.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
When I was a kid, sprinkling heavy metals around was considered a bad thing.
My, how times change.
-Peter
I can see at least one problem with this idea...
Necron69
So it appears as though the effect requires an outside energy source to be useful. Nothing to see here, move on.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I am sure that gold nanoparticles in leaves that need to be replaced at least once a year are going to be really cheap. Plus if you RTFA, they need to shine a black light on the trees to get them to glow and that will suck up a lot more power than the LEDs that glowing trees could replace.
OK, so while the tree's giving off light, can it still make sugars etc and feed itself?
I am speaking strictly out of self-interest here when I say this would be incredibly awesome.
As someone who's family has been in the tree business for a few generations, I would love our products to have a new utility that people actually see as practical. Currently, not many consumers understand that trees are not just for aesthetics, but can provide many practical benefits. Make 'em light up and people (municipalities, really) will be all over 'em.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
It's not viable for the same reason why we do not turn off our lights during full moon.
> but it could also greatly reduce light pollution in major cities.
By replacing street lights with a different kind of street light? One without an apparent "off" switch?
It would seem to make more sense to just reduce the number of lights, or make them smart enough to be on-demand.
Log in or piss off.
In other news, Genetically Modified Broccoli Shrieks Its Benefits At Shoppers... http://www.theonion.com/audio/genetically-modified-broccoli-shrieks-its-benefits,18415/ (warning, audio autoplays)
Pics or it didn't happen.
Seriously, if you don't have a prototype, STFU.
Why not like stick a solar panel on top to power a few LEDs as the lightpost?
I'm pretty sure its cheaper and more environmentally friendly then inserting Gold Nanoparticles and then shining light with a specific wavelenght.
The article says:
...A lot of light emitting diode, especially white light emitting diode, uses phosphor powder to stimulate light of different wavelengths. However, phosphor powder is highly toxic and its price is expensive. As a result, Dr. Yen-Hsun Wu had the idea to discover a method that is less toxic to replace phosphor powder. ...
By implanting the gold nanoparticles into the leaves of the Bacopa caroliniana plants, the scientists were able to induce the chlorophyll in the leaves to produce a red emission. Under a high wavelength of ultraviolet light, the gold nanoparticles were able to produce a blue-violet fluorescence to trigger a red emission in the surrounding chlorophyll.
So it sounds like the trees need a "high wavelength of ultraviolet light" to get them to glow. Seems like they are just replacing the phosphor that makes a white LED glow with these gold implanted leaves. But you'd still need a UV light source (which could be an array of UV LED's?).
I'm not sure that this is really an environmental win -- replacing an array of white LED's that last 10 years with an array of UV LED's that point to trees that need their leaves to be impregnated with gold (and replaced annually?) doesn't sound all that environmentally friendly. How bad is the LED phosphor for the environment?
Once again, proof that journalists should just stick to describing the research rather than coming up with groundbreaking applications which, as you'd almost certainly expect, don't work. The nanoparticles don't make the leaves glow "naturally", you have to shine UV light on them. Then they fluoresce red. But if you want to light streets using this technology, can I recommend just coating the UV light with leaves and doing away with the tree (we don't want to waste UV light after all)? In fact, ignore the leaves - just use a fluorophore. Actually, better yet, why not use a fluorophore that doesn't emit red light? How about something more akin to natural light, like yellow? And make it sensitive to blue light rather than UV (because generating UV is harder). And finally, while we're at it, make the light source solid-state.
Congratulations, you've just invented the white LED.
How long before Telperion and the silmarils are created?
They are shining an ultraviolet light on the trees, with the gold particles they are glowing red by transforming the ultraviolet to red light.
neat, but kinda useless as ultraviolet is dangerous. (not useless on a small scale; but you can't go and light up a neighbourhood with ultraviolet)
But, I also likes savings the electricity
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Valar call prior art!
Ezekiel 23:20
I for one welcome this .. Sounds like one step closer to the glow in the dark gold fish that sheldon promised us !!
in ways which we yet cannot fathom, by disturbing the natural rhythm that trees developed in billions of years of evolution for day/night cycles...
Read radical news here
Trees shed leaves all the time. How many baskets of leaves will it take to contain one ounce of gold? I can hardly wait.
A phosphor powder is part of an LED, which is a solid state device. If a phosphor powder is used in anything, it is likely to be zinc sulfide, not particularly toxic. The emission of light requires an ultraviolet stimulation, so it isn't free energy. Does any part of this make sense?
From TFA: "... the bio-LED luminescence will cause the chloroplast to conduct photosynthesis"
I wonder how the trees will react to this extended duty cycle. Will they grow faster? Will they die sooner? Will they mutate into Ents?
... an astronomer's head just exploded.
How much light pollution with these emit?
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
"...not only would it save on electricity costs and cut CO2 emissions, but it could also greatly reduce light pollution in major cities."
What a stupid thing to say. If they provide enough light to replace street lights, then they contribute just as much to light pollution as the street lights do.
We can use an oak tree, with gold injected into it's leaves, a high power UV light generator to induce a reddish glow and a variable CO2 generator to adjust brightness.
Unless and until we switch over to electric cars en masse, street lights are NOT wasting electricity.
One of the two primary purposes of street lights is to consume the power generated by base-load powerplants that mu$t spin 24/7. Without our vast numbers of street lights, night-time voltages would rise above 130 and start frying your appliances.
Ever wondered why the electric company does not charge money, if you ask them to add a street light to the pole near your house? That's the reason.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
This might work for part of the year, but what about the time from November through April when most trees have lost their leaves? Also, how much energy will be needed to collect all of those fallen leaves since gold, like oil, is not a limitless resource.
From a geekish point of view the idea is pretty neat. Who wouldn't like a bonsai lamp on his desk?
But using such a technology in public trees to replace street lights? Doesn't sound too good for me. What about the animals which dwell on the trees? Not only birds and squirrels, but also invertebrates, reptiles and other small mammals which have nocturnal life and depended on the absence of light to feed, to hunt, to reproduce, to be hunted, etc. This isn't Middle-Earth, they haven't evolved for an environment where leaves give off luminous glow.
Changing the environment (for worst) is not restricted to dumping tons of CO2 on the atmosphere. People haven't got that yet?
As it is now, trees use the energy they recieve from the sun to power their growth.
Any light emitted would be consuming energy.
There is a fixed amount of energy available to the tree (the amount of sunlight it recieves).
If we want trees to glow, we'll have dead trees. Unless we feed them extra energy somehow, which leaves us right back at square one.
Nobody mentioned the price? Really? I mean, gold isn't exactly cheap last I checked...
So... the proposal is to turn Earth into something like Pandora, with all its night-glowy goodness? Is that it?
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
one step closer to realizing the Elven kingdom.
Balderdash!
Subject: Yeah, it seems redundant.
by Anonymous Coward
Still don't know why people do that.
Anonymous Coward
Yeah. It seems kind of redundant.
by Anonymous Coward
Guess what, those of us out in the rural areas do fine without any street lights. Without so much light pollution your eyes get better and you see in the dim light. We get up early, do our chores in the rising light and come in with the night fall. The problem isn't the dark, the problem is urbanism. Cure the cities.
Well, if
1. A > 0
2. B > 0
then (A + B) > A
If 2 is correct. I haven't RTFA yet though.
Quick way to get 30% Funny 70% Troll: defend Opera browser on
So that's how Fanghorn and the Ents got their leafy homes to light up at night !
they implant it in the leaves and then the leaves fall off the tree in the fall -- seems like a futile idea to me
wouldnt the red light emitted by the leaves screw up the photosynthesis, i believe photosynthesis needs darkness to work properly..
sounds like complete fail to me...
Tree leaves are currency. And you always thought Douglas Adams was making fun of them.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Not very intelligent in my opinion unless you live somewhere with guaranteed sunlight each day like phoenix,arizona, and even then must have backup source. We need to try to live off the grid first, till we can actually run our homes, fridges, stoves, computers off a generator off the grid without paying 20k+ for wind+solar components, we will not trust night drivers to any less reliability ie: death of a loved one on christmas driving to see us in the dark.
GGP was talking about grafting: "figuring out which root stocks are the best for different grafted tops".
Now go play and let the grown-ups talk.
With an attitude like that I assume you're excluding yourself from the discussion.
> So it sounds like the trees need a "high wavelength of ultraviolet light" to get them to glow.
If only we had this gigantic glowing ball of gas in the sky that produced energy during the daytime with which to charge up the leaves. It could be out there in space somewhere.
We could call it the "Super Ultimate Neon-light" or SUN for short. Unless it was mostly hydrogen. Then SUH would be a far more logical name.
How does the tree feel about all this?
Seriously, is this healthy for the tree? More to the point, can you get the tree to grow with this feature as a natural part of it's genetic makeup?
Sorry to sound cynical but this sounds like another one of those "news" stories that exist solely to get attention, not because it's about anything really practical.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The question is what would be the long-term effect of poisoning the trees and the rest of the ecosystem (bugs, birds, etc. etc.) with large doses of heavy metals - i.e. gold.
Also to be considered is the question of natural lightning rods that can actually start burning once the lightning strikes them.
And then there is the question of the effect of the UV light (needed to activate the bio-luminescence) on everything in the area, plus what actually happens to the chlorophyll when it is induced to glow.
Wild guess here, but something tells me that either gold or chlorophyll will be spent in the reaction.
So, this would produce either very expensive or very dead trees in the long run. Or both.
Oh... wait. It's an inhabitat.com story? Also posted by samzenpus?
No question is necessary or valid. Utterly irrelevant story. Pure daydreaming.
Might as well discuss the practical application of time-travel and faster than light starships in the world today.
It.
Will.
Never.
Happen.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"...it could also greatly reduce light pollution.", replace one source of light (streetlight) with a different source of comparable light (glowing trees) and you have the same levels of light pollution you moron.
It's like replacing carbon monoxide from a car with carbon monoxide from a furnace, you still have the same problem.
Now I kind of like the idea of glowing trees for streetlights, but stop claiming it's a solution for something it's not. In fact, I suspect it's even worse on the light pollution issues.
First, you'll end up with about the same amount of light, any less and it would be pretty, but pointless.
Second, you can't turn off the trees. Did you know that astronomers try to get cities all over the world to turn of the outside lights on the same night every year?
Third, the streetlights direct the majority of their light downward, but I heavily suspect the trees will blast lumens in every direction.
And a few questions about this. What color can they do this with? White light is preferred for functionality. How much does it cost? How long does it last? What happens during fall or any other time the trees shed their leaves? Will it work for evergreens? And if so, same questions apply to needles as apply to leaves.
Actually I didn't think of Elven when I heard about this a month ago, I actually thought about Jurai from Tenchi Muyo.
Surely chaos and mayhem will break out during the winter months in most northern climates, no?
Not only would it save on electricity costs...
True.
and cut CO2 emissions...
True.
but it could also greatly reduce light pollution in major cities...
Uh, what? Light pollution is just the effect of using lights at night. It doesn't matter whether the light comes from a streetlight or a tree; it's still light pollution.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
It's a billion dollar idea. Shhh!
So, what happens when autumn comes and the leaves fall...
The post he was replying to was refering to grafting plants, try reading.
Ahem, all under them.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
a=
not sure it will show.. alt+236 infinity
what if A=Infinity.. does your statement hold true?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
So what good will it be to decorate trees on Christmas ? It is bad enough that some don't take the lights off the trees.
What about the poor animals that use the trees for refuge ? How woudl you feel if your bedroom has 100 Lumin tourches pointing everywhere ?
... of whether "Street lights are an important part of our urban infrastructure".
I spend quite a bit of time in areas with no street lighting. Want to see where you are going? Turn on your headlights. Need some security lighting? Illuminate only the area or object of interest.
Street lighting was a scam pushed by the power companies back whan energy was cheap. I know. I worked for one. Evidently, we have not yet shaken off their marketing hype.
Have gnu, will travel.
Why does the pressure in your garden hose go up as you turn off the nozzle?
I inform people of this a lot, but take it from me, a plant scientist, that this will never be practical. First, the article is talking about UV induced fluorescence, not bioluminescence. And even if it were, there are already better ways of doing it than gold nanoparticles. These people are blowing smoke way way up your ass. Second, photosynthesis is not that efficient. Out of all the light energy a leaf receives it can convert it, at best, to chemical energy at 9% efficiency. How well do you think a tree would do if we started asking it to burn off its energy at night, for no reason at all? My lab once told DARPA we could make plant bio-sensors which could say, detect chemical weapons in the air and say turn red if there was a problem. Thing is, the plant would need to be in full sunlight and would still take a day or two to manifest a color change. We suspected this already but took DARPA for a ride for a few years anyway. Trust me, they like it that way.
How am I supposed to stalk all those girls if their trees are glowing?! They'll see me right away! Seriously though, you can't get energy from nothing. The energy given off is going to come from the trees themselves. They should determine what consequences it has on the trees.
a UV source to let golden trees glow
We know that silver does this. I've always wondered what gold would do.
using my dick as a bedside lamp. Easy and pleasant modus operandi when you need more light, too. And not more freaky.
And if you get rid of the sources of generated light, wouldn't there be no ambient light to reflect?
All we have to do is coat trees in gold and we wont have to pay our electricity bills anymore? Genius!!!!
How do you implant leaves with gold? Without removing them from the trees?
Up here in the northern climes of the world, most of the leafy plants loose their leaves. This would mean each year for about half of the year there would be no lighting. Then unless it's spliced into the plant to produce these particles, the plant would have to be re-doped with gold nano-particles every year. I do like the idea of UV lighting especially in cars, as many clothes as well as some of the animal furs do reflect UV light back as visible light, and will cause some fluorescing from a greater distance then the regular lights available in cars, and this can be tied in with fluorescent paints, and fluorescing materials in clothes and such to augment the standard car lights. It would also be easier on other drivers then those damn HID lights, in the car that always seems to be behind me, those damn lights seem to cause reflective signs to appear from about half a mile away.
In 1985, I read an article where scientists were able to splice in the gene from a fire fly which makes it glow into a tabacco plant. Later on, scientists were able to splice that gene into mice. The mice only gowed under a light, but did, so I would think getting the gene into a tree should not be harder.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/01/0111_020111genmice.html
So we dig for gold, transport it around the world and somehow get the stuff into the leaves of trees AND THEN shine a bloody UV light on them, to make them glow to replace lamposts? What about the solar technology as used in garden light posts which practically everybody now seems to have. So far the only downside I've had is the batteries need replacing every couple of years.
According to the article: "However, phosphor powder is highly toxic and its price is expensive. As a result, Dr. Yen-Hsun Wu had the idea to discover a method that is less toxic to replace phosphor powder. This is a major motivation for him to engage in the research at the first place."
Is gold really cheaper than phosphor powder? Chemists care to chime in? Is it the powder part that increases the price?
"But since we decided to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have all of course become immensely rich. But we have run into a small inflation problem owing to high leaf availability. That means the current rate is something like three major deciduous forests buy one ship's peanut. In order to obviate this problem and revalue the leaf, we've decided on an extensive campaign of defoliation and burn down all the forests. I think that's a sensible move, don't you?"
From the article,
"by implanting the gold nanoparticles into the leaves of the Bacopa caroliniana plants, the scientists were able to induce the chlorophyll in the leaves to produce a red emission. Under a high wavelength of ultraviolet light, the gold nanoparticles were able to produce a blue-violet fluorescence to trigger a red emission in the surrounding chlorophyll."
So, if we illuminate the trees from below with high (meaning shortwave?) ultraviolet light we can make the trees glow AND give everyone cataracts?
And no one is even discussing how to generate UV more efficiently than current streetlamps generate visible light.
Yokohama Shopping Diary stuff.
Personally, I want the chestnuts as large as bowling balls.
My god, read the reactions, what is this Slashdot or some right wing whiners forum?
Someone made TREES SHINE! Glowing trees! And all people can do here is whine about how UV light is needed or how leaves fall off.
My god. Nerds? Right wing losers. Real nerds would simply think of the fun things that can be done with this. Imagine a park with no visible lights, just all the trees glowing. Who cares if it needs a couple thousand each year for the gold, that is trivial money for park maintenance. And no it isn't going to save electricity or cut down on light polution, that is just a retarded slashdot editor/submitter putting some idiots spin on it.
GLOWING TREES!
I pity the guy that actually fits a shark with laser beams. The only reaction here would be that lasers do not make sense underwater.
If you walked into your kitchen and saw gorgeous twins wearing only an apron, would you bitch about how unhygienic this is and how it invades your privacy that they can just enter your house? I bet most here would.
A real nerd/geek LOVES science and engineering. Who cares if it is practical. Go back to slashrepublican.org.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That's pretty cool. Of course there is no reason to care about the CO2 offset, given that all the climate change crap has been disproved.
These are IR false-colour (color for the US) photos - the gold nanoparticle/glow-in-the-dark stuff is baloney.
You've got to be careful so it doesn't lag like in Crystalsong forest. Otherwise the streets will remain empty.
I would feel much safer with lights in all the trees. This way I don't need to feel afraid of getting raped by an underage elk in the forest.
unless its works in conifers.
Methinks someone mipselled Phosphorescence effect...
It would have been nice if Samzenpus mentioned in the blurb that in order for the trees to glow red you need to illuminate them with high-wavelength UV light. This makes the discovery much less cool and practical.
This is step #1 towards an Avatar type forest :)
Wouldn't street lights be cheaper ?
and
Money really does grow on trees :-)
impractical at best, expensive at least, and biological hazard at worst. how is this better than super-dooper solar-charged LEDs?