用菠菜可探地雷

    Engineers have embedded spinach leaves with carbon nanotubes* to transform them into sensors that can detect explosives.

    The plants then wirelessly relay that information to a handheld device similar to a smartphone, which could theoretically* one day be used by professionals to safely detect and destroy explosive devices such as landmines.

    This is one of the first demonstrations of engineering electronic systems into plants, an approach that the researchers dubbed plant nanobionics*.

    Researchers at MIT designed the plants to detect chemical compounds* known as nitroaromatics*, which are often used in landmines and other explosives.

    When one of these chemicals is present in the groundwater sampled naturally by the plant, carbon nanotubes embedded in the plant leaves emit a fluorescent* signal that can be read with an infrared* camera.

    The camera can be attached to a small computer similar to a smartphone, which then sends an email to the user.

    Michael Strano, the Carbon P Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the leader of the research team, believes plant power could also be harnessed* to warn of pollutants and environmental conditions such as drought.(SD-Agencies)