![]() According to Science News For Students, plants normally suffer long, blazing-hot days to produce the fruits and vegetables that growers desire. The incoming sun’s ultraviolet rays can be very intense sufficient to injury some crops. Such flora would possibly benefit from a built-in sunscreen. Now a group of scientists in Australia has stepped in to lend an assisting hand. A scientist named Liang Dong led the team that developed the new sensor. He works at Iowa State University in Ames. As an electrical engineer, he designs builds and analyzes electrical systems to meet particular needs. According to https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/new-tattoo-could-lead-drought-tolerant-crops A family of nanoparticles known as metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs can absorb harmful UV radiation. .In theory, he could “feed” MOFs to the plants.The problem is, MOFs are too big for plant roots to take up. And cutting open the plants to load them with nanoparticles would damage their stems. Instead, According to he is leading a lookup group working to make plants take up the building blocks of MOFs. Their goal: to assist vegetation make their personal MOFs. If these MOFs can capture the tissue-damaging UV rays, they might assist vegetation to continue to exist in more difficult climates, both on Earth and in space. According to https://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/can-we-grow-crops-on-other-planets/ “Mars is revealing more and more evidence that it probably once had liquid water on its surface, and could one day become a home away from home for humans.”Before deciding how planetary soils could be used, the two scientists had to first explore whether the surfaces of the planetary bodies can be defined a true soil. On Earth, five factors work together in the formation of soil: the parent rock, climate, topography, time and biota(or the organisms in a region such as its flora and fauna). It is this last factor that is still a subject of debate among scientists. Story by Hazel Wiesner Comments are closed.
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