New High-Tech Plants Could Detect Bombs or Chemical Weapons

Interesting news to share with you friends , Researchers have embedded a tiny structures called carbon nanotubes , which is fixed the energy-making factories of plants, increasing their light-capturing ability by 30 percent. Using other carbon nanotubes, the researchers made plants sensitive to the atmospheric pollutant nitric acid.Plants repair themselves, they were environmentally stable outside, they survive in harsh environments, and they provide their own power source and water distribution.
The researchers were originally working on building self-repairing solar cells based on plant cells, which convert light into chemical energy, in the form of sugars and other compounds, by a process known as photosynthesis. The process relies on chloroplasts, the tiny energy factories inside plant cells.
To protect chloroplasts against the damage, the researchers embedded the chloroplasts with tiny antioxidant particles, or nanoparticles, which scoop up oxygen radicals and other highly reactive molecules. In order to deliver the nanoparticles, the researchers coated them in a highly charged molecule that allowed the particles to penetrate the fatty membranes of the chloroplasts. As a result of the nanoparticles, the amount of damaging molecules plummeted.Next, the researchers coated tiny cylinders called carbon nanotubes in negatively charged DNA and embedded them in the chloroplasts. The nanotubes worked like artificial antennae that allowed the plant to capture more light than usual.The rate of photosynthesis in the chloroplasts with embedded nanotubes was almost 50 percent greater than in isolated chloroplasts that lacked the nanotubes. When the researchers embedded both antioxidant nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes in the chloroplasts, these cells continued to function outside of the plant for even longer.
The researchers also improved the energy efficiency of living plants. They infused nanoparticles into a small flowering plant called Arabidopsis thaliana, improving photosynthesis by 30 percent.
Researchers also found a way to turn the Arabidopsis thaliana plants into chemical sensors, using carbon nanotubes that detect the pollutant nitric oxide, which is produced by combustion.The researchers have previously developed carbon nanotubes that detect the explosive TNT and the nerve gas sarin, so they might be able to turn plants into sensors to detect these toxins at low concentrations. Nanobionic plants could also be used to monitor pesticides, fungal infections or bacterial toxins.
nFinally this invention lead to powerful evolution in the field of Biotechnology. A pollution free bright future is on the way with help of these Engineering plants.