Growing Your Own Security: Professor Breeding Bomb-Detecting Plants (Video)

By ralph on January 30, 2011 in News 3

Spencer Ackerman writes on WIRED’s Danger Room:

The next hydrangea you grow could literally save your life. With the help of the Department of Defense, a biologist at Colorado State University has taught plant proteins how to detect explosives. Never let it be said that horticulture can’t fight terrorism.

Picture this at an airport, perhaps in as soon as four years: A terrorist rolls through the sliding doors of a terminal with a bomb packed into his luggage (or his underwear). All of a sudden, the leafy, verdant gardenscape ringing the gates goes white as a sheet. That’s the proteins inside the plants telling authorities that they’ve picked up the chemical trace of the guy’s arsenal.

Read More on WIRED’s Danger Room

Biology, Bizarre, Counterterrorism, Evolution, Genetic Engineering, Plants, Strange Science, Travel, War On Terror

Pingback: Tweets that mention Growing Your Own Security: Professor Breeding Bomb-Detecting Plants (Video) | Disinformation -- Topsy.com
Rooti

Some of this is interesting some of it is bizarre. I believe the bizarre stuff is funding by the military. Using plants to instantly detect explosives at an airport is something only the military or government could pay for. Dogs are really good at this and they have already been developed.
Rooti

Some of this is interesting some of it is bizarre. I believe the bizarre stuff is funding by the military. Using plants to instantly detect explosives at an airport is something only the military or government could pay for. Dogs are really good at this and they have already been developed.