Hello world, mimosa and CRISPR?

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Hi neighbors,
It’s been a few years that Marc suggested to send a message in a bottle here, maybe it’s better late than never!

I’m just an EE/CS engineer, so quite ignorant in Biology or chemistry, but I’m curious about a couple of Mimosa things that some of you might know.

I’ve been quite fascinated by the amount of features this plant has:

  • sensing: touch, temperature, humidity, brightness, electro-stimulation (do I miss anything?)
  • actuating: close its leaves when it senses any of the aforementioned.

1) CRISPR!?

Since I’ve seen that some made light emitting and sensitive neurons, I start to understand the bio-magic…

Does anyone here have any hint about if it would be DIY-possible to extract the genes that makes this plant move, and put them in another one? (or anything else?)

2) electro-bio-monitoring of soil quality!?

By observing the electronic signals in Mimosas we can infer on its bio-sensors states…
=> has anyone heard of plants that could help measuring quality? (pollution level, oxygen, humidity, anything…)
The Humus sapiens gang might have some clues maybe?

If any of you has any pointer about anything in these fields, I’m very interested!
Thanks a lot!
…and nice to finally join you all :wink:

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i guess you missed a loooot! all the molecular / chemical sensing, hormones!! just pee on the plant, and she will know that you did it!

For the “Plant as Soil Sensor” i guess you just look at it. if it looks healthy, mbe you have healthy soil. but in the end you have to narrow down your question more. Welcome to the complexety of of soil ecosystems, embrace it, dig into the dark unknown underground!

It maybe needs a bit more than measuring some mili-voltages with 2-3 electrodes stuck into a plant.

greeez,
m

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Hehe, OK, I guess I still have a lot of homework :wink:
Thanks for the hints!

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we all have manybthings to learn…
just read this surprising news about plants ‘screaming’ in ultra-sound!

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Funny, when I was a kid my grandma told me that about Geraniums (the classical old people plant in France). I had no clue what ultra sounds could be except that they scared dogs so it was probably dangerous.
…but apparently we can even make gold with this trick:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp0549374

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hmmm… i have bad news :frowning:

You need gold to make gold! and even the expensive one…

looked into various methods of biosynthesis of gold-nanoparticles some while ago. anyway, you can also just precipitate from ag (or gold)-salt solution into metallic gold.
search this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Extracellular+biosynthesis+of+gold+nanoparticles&oq=Extracellular+biosynthesis+of+gold+nanoparticles

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…then we become rich and famous.

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Tiny update:
I recently discovered a “dancing plant” AKA “Codariocalyx motorius”:

It’s probably another “hello world” for y’all but if anyone didn’t know about it, I thought it was worth sharing about it ; )
I hope everyone is going well in this intense time…
All the best,
:Drix