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Researchers Create Plant-Circuit Hybrid (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Researchers have crafted flexible electronic circuits inside a rose. Eventually such circuitry may help farmers eavesdrop on their crops and even control when they ripen. The advance may even allow people to harness energy from trees and shrubs not by cutting them down and using them for fuel, but by plugging directly into their photosynthesis machinery. The researchers used "an organic electronic building block called PEDOT-S:H. Each of these building blocks consists of a short, repeating chain of a conductive organic molecule with short arms coming off each link of the chain. Each of the arms sports a sulfur-containing group linked to a hydrogen atom. Berggren's group found that when they placed them in the water, the rose stems readily pulled the short polymer chains up the xylem channels (abstract). ... The upshot was that the myriad short polymer chains quickly linked themselves together into continuous strings as long as 10 centimeters. The researchers then added electronic probes to opposite ends of these strings, and found that they were, in fact, wires, conducting electricity all down the line."
Not to get electricity from (as suggested) but to plug directly into me to recharge me!
Wires, according to TFS. Not much of a circuit, really...
But it's a start. Perhaps they'll also figure out resistors, capacitors and semiconductors. Along with a way for them to self-assemble in such a way as to be able to do something of an intentionally designed nature.
Interesting to see such research going on. I wonder what the eventual consequences might be if they can go further. Rare plants that report to "central" if you try to uproot or poison them? Vegetation that sends out an analysis of the digestive conditions of those that eat them? Weeds that are weather stations? Surveillance built into the trees on a nicely shaded street? Organic LED displays from the garden? Soft, programmable illumination from the tree over your picnic table?
Okay, perhaps I just need more coffee. Not supposed to be dreaming after I wake up. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Do you want Triffids? 'Cause is it probably how we'll get Triffids.
poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)
polystyrene sulfonate
covalently attached anionic side group
Obviously Eeeevil Monsanto is involved. All right-thinking students and faculty at LinkÃping University must shun and harass these evil doers!!
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Now the feds will be able to put circuits in marijuana plants to spy on us.
Dude, it's just yet another Slashdot submission describing grandiose applications of some minor scientific discovery. In the end none of it will turn out to be even remotely feasible in practice.
These types of submissions happen all of the time here. The discoveries they describe very rarely end up producing anything useful.
There's only one submission that I can think of that didn't follow that trend, and that was the one announcing Firefox OS. In that case, I thought that Firefox OS wouldn't just come to nothing; it would actually be a total disaster instead. I think I was right. We've seen it drain away resources that could have been used to restore Firefox to its 3.6 UI, and to finally fix the performance problems.
Thought of this as a science-fiction premise about 8 years ago. A world where one would literally grow a cell-phone -- completely biodegradable.
At this rate we'll have silly elf-leaves growing around our ears that allow us to communicate with each other -- having all the appearance of telepathy but all the boring reality of CDMA
I, for one, wholeheartedly welcome our Robotic Plant Overlords.
But just think of the buzz you could get!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I don't think so. From TFA:
The researchers then added electronic probes to opposite ends of these strings, and found that they were, in fact, wires, conducting electricity all down the line.
Sorry, a "wire" is not the same thing as a "circuit". At least not in my dictionary. Not trying to diminish this engineering achievement, but words do matter when it comes to these things.
TFA also mentions the possibility of harvesting energy from plants using this tech. Not my area, but is this really possible? Can you take energy from a plant without stunting/killing it?
Isn't this how The Matrix began?
Does it get broken down into something harmless in the stomach? Or do YOU get conductive lines along YOUR plumbing?
It's not a minor thing: For starters the heartbeat propagation is partly electrical. Better-than-blood-plasma conductors laid out along the plumbing of the heart might affect the heartbeat in a dangerous manner.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Not until they try to make people grow it as a food crop.
Imagine the evolution of plants that evolved to store a portion of the energy they collected as electric charge. It might be selected as a way to deter predation, giving any unwary herbivore a nasty, electric eel-like jolt.
"Obviously Eeeevil Monsanto is involved."
I for one would love to see Monsanto using this tech in plants that taze anti-GMO activists attacking their test fields.
LOL.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Opps, I meant the anti-GMO crowd. This electrical circuitry might get out into the wild, and soon the only roses left will be circuitzed.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
so much for the matrix...
ALIEN EARTH, by Edmond Hamilton.