Nanoparticles Turn Houseplants Into Night Lights (newatlas.com) 45
Longtime Slashdot reader cristiroma shares a report from New Atlas: Wouldn't it be great if the plants in your home could do more than just sit there looking pretty? Researchers at South China Agricultural University in the city of Guangzhou have found a way to upgrade them into soft glowing night lights in a range of hues, with the use of nanoparticles. The team developed a light-emitting phosphor compound that enabled succulents with fleshy leaves to charge in sunlight or indoor LED light in just a couple of minutes, and then emit a soft uniform glow that lasts up to two hours. The afterglow phosphor compound -- which is similar to those found in glow-in-the-dark toys -- is inexpensive, biocompatible, and negates the need for more complex methods of infusing bioluminescence in plants, like genetic modification. It simply gets injected into the leaves.
[...] Beyond modifying a commercial compound for this project, the team also had to figure out the right size for the phosphor particles so they'd work as intended inside plants. Shuting Liu, first author on the study that appeared in Matter this week, noted, "Smaller, nano-sized particles move easily within the plant but are dimmer. Larger particles glowed brighter but couldn't travel far inside the plant." Through extensive testing, the researchers arrived at an optimal size of around 7 micrometers, about the width of a red blood cell. They also determined through experimentation that the particles worked best in succulents, rather than plants with thinner leaves like bok choy.
Once they'd landed on the right particle size, loading concentration, and plant type, the team found that the phosphor material diffused into succulent leaves almost instantly, and uniformly lit up entire leaves -- enough to illuminate nearby objects. The scientists were also able to create modified phosphors that glowed in colors like green, red, and blue. That could make for novel indoor or garden decor, as well as pathway lighting. These luminous plants also don't cost much -- according to Liu, "Each plant takes about 10 minutes to prepare and costs a little over 10 yuan (about $1.4), not including labor." Over the course of 10 days, the injected plants didn't show any signs of damage, yellowing, structural integrity, or even reduced levels of chlorophyll.
[...] Beyond modifying a commercial compound for this project, the team also had to figure out the right size for the phosphor particles so they'd work as intended inside plants. Shuting Liu, first author on the study that appeared in Matter this week, noted, "Smaller, nano-sized particles move easily within the plant but are dimmer. Larger particles glowed brighter but couldn't travel far inside the plant." Through extensive testing, the researchers arrived at an optimal size of around 7 micrometers, about the width of a red blood cell. They also determined through experimentation that the particles worked best in succulents, rather than plants with thinner leaves like bok choy.
Once they'd landed on the right particle size, loading concentration, and plant type, the team found that the phosphor material diffused into succulent leaves almost instantly, and uniformly lit up entire leaves -- enough to illuminate nearby objects. The scientists were also able to create modified phosphors that glowed in colors like green, red, and blue. That could make for novel indoor or garden decor, as well as pathway lighting. These luminous plants also don't cost much -- according to Liu, "Each plant takes about 10 minutes to prepare and costs a little over 10 yuan (about $1.4), not including labor." Over the course of 10 days, the injected plants didn't show any signs of damage, yellowing, structural integrity, or even reduced levels of chlorophyll.
How stupid is this? (Score:5, Insightful)
You could just paste any of the "glow in the dark" junk that sells in every 100 yen shop equivalent worldwide and don't poison your plants.
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Yeah I say quit screwing around with nature an plants. I feel pretty confident they didn't ask for that. Just put phosphorous matter in a recipient or spread it on a sheet or something to accomplish the same.
When I was a kid, around 4-5 years old, an aunt gave me a phosphorous necklace and it fascinated me so much that I was always trying to make it shine as bright as possible in the dark. I used to put it above my bed side lamp, turn the light off then repeat. Once, I fell asleep with the light on and when
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I think you meant "phosphorescent", not "phosphorous".
Glowing houseplants? (Score:4, Funny)
I've seen this movie. It uses 96 batteries. [getyarn.io]
"Wouldn't it be great..." (Score:2, Informative)
No, I'd rather they just sit there and look pretty. That's why I bought them and placed them in my house.
Re:Nanoparticles? You mean like microplastics? (Score:5, Informative)
Not all RBC-size particles are created the same. RBCs, for example, biodegrade in a few hours. Plastics don't biodegrade for hundreds of years.
The material here is SrAl2O4:Eu2+,Dy3+ (SA) coated with H3PO4 to prevent hydrolysis and biodegradation. So it's a metal compound, not a plastic. The core compound is well-studied and biologically inert, and the phosphorus is very common in cells. The core compound is inert, sort of like a fine dust.
By contrast, the concern with microplastics is that they can mimic various endocrine compounds (since plastics are organic) and cause endocrine disruption over the long term.
Both types of particles might cause low-level inflammation if they build up, because they're hard to naturally clear, but the metal compound will not interact with the body, whereas microplastics can interact with the body in various unpredictable ways.
Obviously we won't know any health effects until these are much better studied, but we also can't lump all micrometer-sized particles together - these clearly behave differently than microplastics.
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Plastics don't biodegrade for hundreds of years.
Isn't that the point of something to be considered a "biocompatible" material?
So it's a metal compound, not a plastic.
Sounds like making a distinction without a difference. If it doesn't break down in the body then to the body it's just a tiny piece of an inert solid.
The core compound is inert, sort of like a fine dust.
But if the plastics stick around for hundreds of years, apparently also while inside human bodies, then that sounds like an inert fine dust.
By contrast, the concern with microplastics is that they can mimic various endocrine compounds (since plastics are organic) and cause endocrine disruption over the long term.
Got a citation for that? If that was a measurable feature of microplastics then why isn't that mentioned in every news article on microplastic
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From your second link:
Despite its ubiquitous distribution, current knowledge about the health effects of MP and associated chemicals in mammals is limited.
The third link is about BPA in plastic food containers, not microplastics. Would the plastics still contain BPA after being weathered in the environment by wind, water, sand, and so much else? If so then can there be all that much to cause any detrimental impacts if the particles carrying the BPA are so small that they are on the scale of a red blood cell or whatever?
The fourth link is also not about microplastics.
You can't even internet and you want us to believe you can logic.
I can "internet" just fine. When seeking out information on microplas
Re: Nanoparticles? You mean like microplastics? (Score:2)
You think plastics are going to affect you less when they have more surface area and are inside your body? Fuck me running.
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Wow. You sure do make a lot of words. Let me try to address a couple of things.
By contrast, the concern with microplastics is that they can mimic various endocrine compounds (since plastics are organic) and cause endocrine disruption over the long term.
A quick search of the web tells me that on average people have 5 grams of microplastics in their body, that's the weight of a nickel. And the plastic lasts for hundreds of years. So just how much of that plastic is getting turned into compounds that impact someone's hormone levels in a day? Or in a year?
An epi-pen delivers about 5 milligrams of adrenaline (which is a hormone), which produces a definite effect. 5 grams is 1000 times as much as 5 milligrams. A typical dose of fentanyl is 50 micrograms, or 1/100,000th of five grams. Small amounts of drugs or drug-like substances can potentially have large effects. Narcan (Naloxone) is a treatment for fentanyl overdose; a typical dose is 4 mg, less than 1/1000 of 5 grams. And some
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I'm going on a rant here because of the hypocrisy.
What hypocrisy?
IT IS TWO DIFFERENT GROUPS OF PEOPLE.
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"It's as if the people reporting the news don't care about being consistent"
That's just an astoundingly stupid thing to say. I don't even know where to begin with that.
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If breathing in tiny bits of foreign material is bad for our lungs then maybe we should not be bringing more of them into our house.
Unless I am very much mistaken, that's exactly what most of the people here are saying. Of course, even without glowing plants, you're already getting exposed to microplastics from carpets, rugs, synthetic fabrics, and other sources including the general environment.
How do dispose of it? Is it compostable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bright guys (Score:2)
If you can poison plants, you can also be poison yourselves.
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Perhaps. But can you do (fill in the blank)?
Note: I'm not going to tell you what goes into the blank. You have to answer without having this information.
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Naah, I am not that bright.
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Yes, "glowing skin" gets a new meaning.
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Light pollution is not always a good thing (Score:2)
Moths are drawn to artificial light sources, this as they use the light source to facilitate finding a mate, and whilst you could potentially argue this is "natural", these plants will end up spreading in the outdoor environment, and we end up upsetting nature.
https://butterfly-conservation... [butterfly-...vation.org]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
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these plants will end up spreading in the outdoor environment, and we end up upsetting nature.
they're injecting a discrete amount of material into leaves of grown plants, not genetically modifying them. think of it as painting them, the plants spreading it out of control is impossible. they will slowly shed that material and it will end up in the ground or a landfill. a tiny amount might end up in fruits, seeds, polen, sprouts, but the concentration will very rapidly diminish. i wouldn't throw them into the composter, though, but they're using it on succulents which are long lived and rarely compost
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TFA makes a point that the nanoparticles are "injected" into the plants as an alternative to "genetic engineering" of any sort.
Without genetic engineering you're not going to get these propagating into the next generation. Unless you deliberately (and successfully) get the nanoparticles into the plant's ovary or anthers (or stem cells destined for there), when you might get one or several particles per seedling. Which would not then reproduce, b
Eh, no (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be great if the plants in your home could do more than just sit there looking pretty?
Other than maybe "it would be nice if they ate houseflies", eh, no, can't say I've ever thought that.
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Wouldn't it be great if the plants in your home could do more than just sit there looking pretty?
Other than maybe "it would be nice if they ate houseflies"
Of course there are plants that do that.
making plants luminescent (Score:2)
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good point.
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The problem here,is that plants need a period of darkness in order to flower ,ergo,they are influencing each other rather badly.
If it's less bright than full moonlight then it most likely won't have an effect.
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making plants luminescent (Score:2)
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You consume ... with a fair amount of individual variation, as well as effort-related changes ... between a half and three-quarters a gramme of oxygen a minute. Which would take a fairly substantial shrub (growing volume, several cubic metres) to account for.
If you kept a substantial conservatory, fairly densely packed with plants, you'd cover your oxygen consumption. By day. With a 50% duty cycle on the sky-mounted thermonuclear reactor, you'd need a second conservatory - which would approximately double y
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No structural integrity you say? (Score:2)
Over the course of 10 days, the injected plants didn't show any signs of damage, yellowing, structural integrity, or even reduced levels of chlorophyll.
I'm supposed to hate this, right? (Score:2)
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novel indoor or garden decor (Score:2)
So what happens when animals and insects eat these plants ?
Does nobody care ?
slippery slope (Score:2)
Plants do plenty. Making them do more is a bad idea, which is a lesson I learned from watching Little Shop of Horrors.