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posted by martyb on Tuesday November 01 2016, @11:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the set-the-timer-to-9-minutes dept.

The BBC is reporting on MIT's "bionic spinach":

By embedding tiny tubes in the plants' leaves, they can be made to pick up chemicals called nitro-aromatics, which are found in landmines and buried munitions. Real-time information can then be wirelessly relayed to a handheld device.

The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) work is published in the journal Nature Materials [DOI: 10.1038/nmat4771] [DX].

The scientists implanted nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes (tiny cylinders of carbon) into the leaves of the spinach plant. It takes about 10 minutes for the spinach to take up the water into the leaves. To read the signal, the researchers shine a laser onto the leaf, prompting the embedded nanotubes to emit near-infrared fluorescent light. This can be detected with a small infrared camera connected to a small, cheap Raspberry Pi computer. The signal can also be detected with a smartphone by removing the infrared filter most have.


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  • (Score: 2) by rts008 on Tuesday November 01 2016, @08:01PM

    by rts008 (3001) on Tuesday November 01 2016, @08:01PM (#421378)

    And just WHAT, pray tell, will happen when Popeye gets a mouthful of nanotubes?
    Do carbon nanotubes continue to conduct electricity after being shoved up someone's goatse-hole?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:15AM (#421459)

    Follow up with some Olive Oil?