These Cyborg Plants Can Respond To Your Command

Houseplants are proven to help purify the air and improve people’s mood, but most of the time, homeowners consider them ornament than a living thing.

MIT researchers are working to change that concept. They have turned some plants into bionic flora capable of sensing motion, responding when there is a lick of a mouse, or propelling robotic vehicles. In the future, experts may create plants that can help us connect with friends, guard our homes, and send us notifications.

According to Harpreet Sareen, Assistant Professor of Interaction and Media Design at Parsons School of Design:

Sareen and his fellow researchers presented two modified plants at a computer conference in Glasgow. One of them was an electrode-studded Venus flytrap that would respond to a computer command. All you have to do is to tap on the plant on the app, and that corresponding part will shut down. The other one had a wire inside, making it a motion-detecting antenna.

Before what they demonstrated at the conference in Scotland, Sareen has had another cyborg botany project which could propel a small robot and turn on a lamp.

They have not yet elaborated on the details of the project, but the team has a clear idea of how we may interact with cyborg plants in the future.

In a video coming with the research, we can see a motion-sensitive rosebud that can turn hand gestures into computer actions. Another rosebud can sense when the house cat comes out the door and send an alert to the house owner.

Another creation is a pair of ferns that help couples who are far away from one another feel connected. When one person touches the fern, the other wiggles.

Sareen said that these kinds of notifications were gentler than the sounds or dazzling displays of handheld devices:

Katie Siek of Indiana University agreed with Sareen in this:

She said that she had seen some people put the phones away so that they do not have to see their intrusive notifications.

Another application of these kinds of cyborg plants is to care for the elderly. If he or she falls and needs medical assistance, the plants might be of great use.

However, she also pointed out the disadvantage of this creation:

Even if they are gentler than what we have on smartphones and other handheld devices, these plants can still distract us when we are spending time with our family or at work. She posed a question:

Although they aim high for the cyborg plants, Sareen team has no intention to bring their creation to commercial use any time soon.

Sareen said that the target here was to make a kind of Avatar world where people on the alien planet connect with fauna and flora via neural links in their hair.