Scientists have transformed the humble spinach plant into a bomb detector.
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.[br]The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) work is published in the journal Nature Materials, and BBC News reports.
The scientists implanted nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes (tiny cylinders of carbon) into the leaves of the spinach plant. It takes approximately 10 minutes for the spinach to take up the water into the leaves.
To read the sign,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, or cheap Raspberry Pi computer. The sign can also be detected with a smartphone by removing the infrared filter most have.
Co-author Prof Michael Strano,from MIT in Cambridge, US, or said the work was an indispensable proof of principle.
Source: tert.am