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Here we go: we might not need liquid water after all on mars to get some nice flowering plants there! ... and terraform ? :-) Thirsty plants can extract water from the crystalline structure of gypsum, a rock-forming mineral found in soil on Earth and Mars.

Some plants grow on gypsum outcrops and remain active even during dry summer months, despite having shallow roots that cannot reach the water table. Sara Palacio of the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology in Jaca, Spain, and her colleagues compared the isotopic composition of sap from one such plant, called Helianthemum squamatum (pictured), with gypsum crystallization water and water found free in the soil. The team found that up to 90% of the plant's summer water supply came from gypsum.

The study has implications for the search for life in extreme environments on this planet and others.

Nature Commun 5, 4660 (2014)

Very interesting indeed. Attention is to be put on the form of calcium sulfate that is found on Mars. If it is hydrated (gypsum Ca(SO4)*2(H2O)) it works, but if it is dehydrated there is no water for the roots to take in. The Curiosity Rover tries to find out, but has uncertainty in recognising the hydrogen presence in the mineral: Copying : "(...) 3.2 Hydration state of calcium sulfates Calcium sulfates occur as a non-hydrated phase (anhydrite, CaSO4) or as one of two hydrated phases (bassanite, CaSO4.1/2H2O, which can contain a somewhat variable water content, and gypsum, CaSO4.2H2O). ChemCam identifies the presence of hydrogen at 656 nm, as already found in soils and dust [Meslin et al., 2013] and within fluvial conglomerates [Williams et al., 2013]. However, the quantification of H is strongly affected by matrix effects [Schröder et al., 2013], i.e. effects including major or even minor element chemistry, optical and mechanical properties, that can result in variations of emission lines unrelated to actual quantitative variations of the element in question in the sample. Due to these effects, discriminating between bassanite and gypsum is difficult. (...)"

forgot the reference http://www.msl-chemcam.com/doc/documents/577/Nachon%20et%20al%20Calcium%20sulfate%20veins%20characterized%20by%20ChemCam%20Curiosity%20at%20Gale%20Crater%20Mars_2013.pdf

The work of our team on the Mimosa Pudica has been publish! It proves for the first time the ability of plants to learn. After a countless number of rejections, Oecologia had the courage of publishing it. Now the road is open to demonstrations that learning capability exists not only in sensitive plants, but also in normal plants. This can change the entire biology. A bit rhetorical, but real.

very nice!!! congratulations! what are you working on now - also on this?

I work on some aspects of plant to plant communication! I hope to publish soon something equally exciting!! and of course I will let you know!!

Plants have many valuable functions: They provide food and fuel, release the oxygen that we breathe, and add beauty to our surroundings. Now, researchers wants to make plants even more useful by augmenting them with nanomaterials that could enhance their energy production and give them completely new functions, such as monitoring environmental pollutants.

A light-bulb moment? Plants seem to pipe sunlight directly down into underground roots to help them grow. Light receptors in stems, leaves and flowers have long been known to regulate plant growth. Roots also have these receptors, but it has been unclear how they sense light deep in dark soil.

The enormous solar plant-jointly owned by NRG Energy, BrightSource Energy and Google-opened for business today ... well yesterday, but still impressive!

impressive pictures - looking at the 2nd to last and 4th to last one, I am wondering how this distributed individually control of the mirrors works - and idea?

Machine learning obviously. Most likely neural networks :P On the other hand: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-solar-plant-is-killing-birds-meltin-1525107821

plant intelligence in action (even plants are more intelligent than our AI algorithm)

...This slippery surface was bio-inspired by the carnivorous plant I showed you sometimes ago! I was sure it was a good idea! next time I will be quicker!!

And a good lesson that it is important to proceed quickly when you have an idea and don't wait ...

Yes, I will see what we could do, but they really did a good job, from the biomimetic of the surface, up to the realization of the material, and the tests...

" The goal of the APT program is to control and direct plant physiology to detect chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear threats, as well as electromagnetic signals. " Now that is an advanced concept...

and look at this exceptional insight: "plants are easily deployed, self-powering, and ubiquitous in the environment, and the combination of these native abilities with specifically engineered sense-and-report traits will produce sensors occupying new and unique operational spaces" :-)

First evidence for associative learning in plants ?

Something for the plant folks... assuming you have enough travel budget...

It is a nice conference indeed, I've been to many of the previous editions (they changed the name of the conference this year)...

Solvay announced today it has successfully commissioned its 1 MegaWatt (MW) industrial demonstration Fuel Cell at the SolVin plant in Lillo, Antwerp, Belgium. This Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cell converts coproduced hydrogen (H2) in the plant into electricity and is now producing for weeks at a steady rate. The Fuel Cell has generated over 500 MWh in about 800 hours of operation, which amounts to the electricity consumption of 1370 families during the same time frame.

Japan has started construction of two floating solar power plants, which will become part of a huge, 60 megawatt floating renewable energy network.

They should probably buddy up with the wave energy dudes and create the ultimate reneweable energy plant

even being so used to italians that accent is hilarious

how comes that they did not apply to our Ariadna?

maybe we should have a second look at multiple roots as networks

The release reports that researcher José Feijó says the " findings, implicating analogous genes in growth processes in both plants and animals, underscores how evolution re-uses successful mechanisms, over and over again."

A rain forest vine has evolved dish-shaped leaves to attract the bats that pollinate it, scientists have found. Tests revealed that the leaves were supremely efficient at bouncing back the sound pulses the flying mammals used to navigate. When the leaves were present the bats located the plant twice as quickly as when these echoing leaves were removed.

A preview of an educational movie on plant growth. Could be usefull for boom deflection.

I wanted to post this one, as plant-inspired robotic design and algorithms are a new kid on the block, and then noticed that some ACT-members may already be aware of this special issue...

Ants found in the Pacific islands of Fiji behave as miniature farmers, carefully sowing and fertilising the seeds of at least six types of plant, a study said Monday.