- Some Swedish researchers are growing
electrically conductive
wires in common garden roses.
Talk about a power plant.
Let's take a quick trip
back to elementary school
science class, that's
probably where you learned
about vascular plants.
These are plants that
have a sort of circulatory
system to transport stuff
like water and nutrients.
The main components are xylem and phloem.
The xylem is a system of tubes and cells
that transport water
and dissolve minerals.
The phloem cells transport
sugars and other molecules
created through the
process of photosynthesis.
The Swedish researchers
pointed out that this
vascular network isn't all that different
from an electronic circuit.
The researchers took a rose,
snipped the lower part of its stem,
and put the exposed cross
section in a solution
containing electrically
conductive polymers.
Which we call PEDOT,
and why do we call it that?
Because it's too hard to say
polyethylenedioxythiophene.
Roses' vascular system
drew in the solution,
distributing it throughout the plant.
The scientists then took
a close look at the rose's
stem, peeling back the outer layers.
They saw that the solution
had done what they
had hoped, it formed
hydrogel wires capable of
conducting electricity.
It also allowed the
vascular system to continue
doing its job, the plant wasn't starving.
They tested another idea by
infusing a plant's leaves
with a different conductive polymer.
When they flowed direct
current through the leaf,
the researchers could make
the leaf darker or lighter
in color, it's sort of
like an extremely primitive
biological display, but
what does it all mean?
I hear you cry out.
Well, using this method,
scientists can measure
biological processes in
plants with a precision
we didn't have access to before.
Increasing our understanding of biology.
Technologies that rely on
molecules we get from plants
could see a huge benefit down the road,
and perhaps we'd even be
able to harvest energy
from the photosynthetic
process turning plants
into solar cells.
Personally, I'm hoping
this work will justify my
new screenplay, in which
a cyborg rose is sent
back to 15th Century
England to stop the Yorks
and Lancasters from going into battle.
Hope springs eternal.
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