Colorado State University Biologist Rewires Plants to Detect Pollutants, Explosives

June Medford, plant biologist at Colorado State University, explains from her laboratory on the CSU campus how she's discovered how to rewire plants so that they can detect environmental contaminants and explosives. Green plants turn white once they're exposed to such contaminants -- a discovery made by Medford and her collaborators including some 30 graduate, undergraduate, post-doctoral fellows and researchers in her lab.

Bill Farland, vice president for Research at CSU, says this is the kind of basic science at CSU -- an institution with more than $300 million in annual research expenditures -- that is making a difference in the world.

To read more about this discovery, visit http://www.news.colostate.edu/Release/5553

For more videos about CSU, check out Colorado State University's YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/coloradostateuniv

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Colorado State University
• CSU
• June Medford
• Medford
• environmental contaminants
• research
• science
• discovery
• Bill Farland

[lovelplants]

oh nice. changing the green plant to white.. they develop it very good.

[thegreeensky]

awesome! nice plants...

[happinesson]

This invention is badly needed in some areas in mindanao, where bombings are rampant almost everyday. What a great Idea to save billions of lives against terrorist minded people!

[WaySide66]

This type of research is generally underfunded. I bet there is some lab working on growing plant vaginas with a billion dollar budget.

[aahmed47]

need to be grown every where in pakistan :) thumbs up

[derman077]

There's something weird about that logo.

[fizzlejibbs]

This is why plants are so fantastic. They are like self contained chemistry labs.

[locouk]

Ahhh.. Day of the triffids!

[1GXG]

weed that does your cooking for you when u get the munchies !

[kamikazefluxe]

@mayyatara Good comment....; I was wondering the same thing about how they think they can fine tune this plant to detect so many different substances....; I mean how can you train a plant to ignore one thing and detect another if both have the same ingredients? I'm no scientist but I'd say there are way to many variables and far too many things that can go wrong with this ti be investing so much money in it; might as well go back to funding the hover tank :)