Researchers in Singapore linked up plants to electrodes capable of monitoring the weak electrical pulses naturally emitted by the greenery.
“These kinds of nature robots can be interfaced with other artificial robots hybrid systems,” Chen Xiaodong, the lead author of a study on the research at Nanyang Technological University , told AFP. Researchers believe such technology could be particularly useful as crops face increasing threats from climate change.
The team embedded carbon nanotubes that emit a signal when plant roots detect nitroaromatics – compounds often found in explosives. The signal is then read by an infrared camera that sends out a message to the scientists. – AFPA PhD student at NTU’s School of Materials Science and Engineering attaching an electrode on the surface of a Venus flytrap plant at a laboratory in Singapore, as scientists develop a high-tech system for communicating with vegetation.