Reporting for NBC Mach, Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky writes that MIT researchers are developing augmented plants that can serve as sensors. Jeffrey-Wilensky explains that the researchers believe the plants could one day be used to “guard our homes, connect us to distant friends and send us gentle push notifications without the sensory overload of a computer screen.”
Popular Mechanics reporter Dave Grossman writes that MIT researchers are “utilizing plants' natural abilities of sensory detection and attempting to co-join them with modern tech.”
Profs. Michael Strano and Sheila Kennedy have developed an exhibit for the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, which explores how Strano’s glowing plant research could be part of a sustainable energy future. “The pair is one of 62 design teams involved in the [Triennial], which highlights innovative ways humans are engaging with nature,” writes Emily Matchar for Smithsonian.
Verge reporter Angela Chen spotlights Prof. Michael Strano’s work using nanobionics to engineer plants. “It’s long overdue that we start to look at plants as the starting point of technology,” explains Strano. “As an engineering platform, they have a number of untapped advantages.”
Popular Mechanics reporter Jill Kiedaisch writes that MIT researchers have developed a plant cyborg, named Elowan, that can move itself towards sources of light. Kiedaisch writes that Elowan “could elevate how we interface with the world around us, leveraging the natural abilities of plants to inform how we animals express our own agency to live, and keep living, perhaps a bit more symbiotically.”
Media Lab researchers have created a new robotic plant, dubbed Elowan, that acts like a light sensor, reports Katharine Schwab for Fast Company. Schwab explains that the new plant-robot hybrid, “shows that technologists can use signals that already exist in nature–like the plant’s light-sensing capacity–to create an entirely new kind of organic interface.”
Motherboard reporter Caroline Haskins writes that Media Lab researchers have developed a new plant-robot hybrid that uses electrodes, a robot and wheels so that it can move itself towards light. Haskins explains that “bioelectrochemical signals from the plant that respond to light…are routed to a robot underneath the plant, and wheels take the plant to a spot best-suited for its survival.”
The Media Lab’s Open Agriculture Initiative is releasing a Personal Food Computer, which uses the same algorithms as the lab and is “capable of growing four plants at a time,” reports Howie Kahn of The Wall Street Journal. Research scientist Caleb Harper hopes the PFC technology, which will be piloted in Boston-area schools, “will expand our knowledge of cultivation on a rapidly changing planet.”
MIT researchers have developed a method for turning plant leaves into a light source by injecting light-emitting nanoparticles into the leaves, reports Mark Ellwood for The Wall Street Journal. “Currently, researchers are able to make plants such as spinach, kale and watercress emit a dim light for about 4 hours,” says Ellwood, “up from 45 minutes when the project began in 2015.”
In a VICE News Tonight climate segment, MIT postdocs Volodymyr Koman and Seon-Yeong Kwak explain their technique for making plants glow in the dark to a first-grade class in Boston. Following a demonstration mixing plant glucose with the specialized nanoparticles, one student exclaims in disbelief, “no battery or anything!”
Tony Lee of Mashable spotlights the technique developed by MIT researchers that allows plants to glow when inserted with nanoparticles containing luciferase, an enzyme known to make fireflies glow.
Prof. Michael Strano spoke with CNN’s Nicola Davison about his recent work making plants glow. "We're thinking about how we can engineer plants to replace functions of the devices that we encounter every day. The things that we make out of plastic and circuit boards -- can we replace those with a living plant?" said Strano.
Boston Globe reporter Alex Kingsbury highlights how MIT researchers have developed a new technique that allows plants to glow in the dark. Kingsbury writes that, “In subsequent tests with watercress, arugula, kale, and spinach, the plants glowed for 3.5 hours. Researchers also figured out a way to turn off the glow during daylight hours.”
Boston 25 News reports that MIT researchers have developed a new technique that allows plants to glow in the dark and could potentially be used in the future to transform them into sources of electricity. The researchers demonstrated the technique on several different types of plants, including kale, arugula, spinach, and watercress.
Prof. Michael Strano speaks with BBC News reporter Alan Kasujja about the technique his team developed to embed nanoparticles into a plant’s leaves so that it can glow in the dark. Strano explains that his team figured out, “how to control where these particles go inside the plant…We can put them right near the biochemical processes where photosynthesis occurs.”