Plants detect bombs by changing colors (submitted by Andres Pereira)

A scientist at Colorado State University has developed a way to make every day plants one of the first lines of defense in the war on terror. The plants won't change before your eyes, yet, but lab work being done right now makes green plants turn white if they detect explosive, biological or chemical weapons in their environment. Looking to potential future uses, one could envision someone walking by these plants in an airport with hidden explosives and the plants changing color to alert security.

Professor June Medford and fellow scientists on the campus of CSU, located in Ft Collins, Colorado are now working with the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to develop hi-tech plants for use in airports and other public areas. "We actually modify the seed," Medford explains, "and then it's a trait that is stable and stays with it forever. It's very empowering because it will tell you that there's an explosive around, get the security guys here!"

The idea may sound like science fiction to some, but Medford says using plants to detect chemicals and pathogens makes perfect sense. Just think of bananas, which are picked green but will not ripen in northern climates unless exposed to the gas ethylene. Medford has modified her plants to react when exposed to specific agents by turning from green to white. Medford says, "It's a program we can put in any plant species."

Like most living organisms, plants have built in defense mechanisms, but "...plants can't run and hide from a threat," Medford explains, "they have to have a way to detect and respond and they do that already. But they detect things like bugs and things like that. So what we've done is teach them a new trick...to detect things we care about."

Medford's list of possibilities seems endless. In addition to explosives detection, plants can be modified to react to disease causing microbes, pollutants, even carbon monoxide or radon gases in homes. Medford also says members of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan could use these greens to detect Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's).

But if you are curious about the science of all this, don't get too detailed with Medford.  During the interview with Fox News, there were numerous times when she was unable to answer a question, for security purposes.  The delicate nature of national security, she explains, means keeping some of this stuff secret.  "I think when you have a system where the bad guys don't know that there's a detector there, I think it's very very powerful," Medford says, "because it can tell our security guys, the police, where to come and and where to look.  Maybe there's a terrorist, a home grown terrorist making bombs and then we could potentially find those."

Before it can become practical, however, Medford says the time it takes for a plant to turn from green to white has to be reduced. "It works right now, but it'll work in hours, we need to cut it down to minutes and seconds and we think that's very doable and indeed we're getting some very good data to support that."