Unveiling The World’s First Bionic Plant [The plant that glows in the dark]

Before now, people have thought that the term “bionic” is exclusively persevered for humans and possibly animals. But that mentality is almost set to go into oblivion with the engineering of the world’s first bionic plant.

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This feat was achieved by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; MIT, Led by Professor Michael Strano (professor of biochemical engineering) and professor Seon Yeong Kwak to augment biochemical sensing in plants.

Growing of the plant

The test subject (watercress plant) was embedded with some specially created nanoparticles into the leaves. 

According to Prof Seon

Embedding of the nanoparticles would cause the plant to emit a dim light, thus glowing for over four hours – Prof Seon [paraphrased by me]

This could be opening up the world to another form of renewable energy the world has been waiting for. Imagine if the trees and plants in our streets emit light at night, the need for street light would be completely overridden.

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In the words of Prof Strano:

The vision for this research is to create a plant that will also serve as a lamp. A kind of lamp which you won’t need to plug in, and you won’t also need any form of power to run. A self-illuminating lamp – Prof Strano [Paraphrased by me]

Nanobiotics of plant

With the advancement of this tech, the ultimate goal would be to lighten up our streets with bionic trees. Also plant nanobiotics; according to prof Strano, would be able to use nanoparticles to introduce some unique and un-plantlike features into natural plants. 

These features include: glowing in the dark, self-healing properties, creating their own energy independently of sunlight, and most of all; adapting to almost any kind of environment; both indoors and outdoors.

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Now do you think this is possible? Well, the answer is an emphatic “YES”. A trail has already been blazed in the right direction.

Future researches on bionic plants

There are quite some awesome researches you should look out for in the field of plant bionics. Two of these include:

• Explosive-detecting plant
• Drought-monitoring plant

P.S: A perfectly advanced technology is almost indistinguishable from magic

Tech Rules!!

References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3