For most of us, flowers are beautiful, a symbol of something we really like. It is easy to understand why people from all around the world love flowers. However, flowers are so much more than what we initially think. Those flowers that we instantly recognize are the ones that quickly attract birds and insects.
Technology is changing the way we interact with flowers, their availability, and more. Nowadays, it is really easy to go online, visit a site like Flowwow, and order exactly what we like. Flowers would reach our door and we can give them to those we love. We can also keep them, of course. This is what we all see when it comes to the influence of technology on how we interact with flowers.
What we do not see is the hard work of numerous scientists that take advantage of what technology can do and transform flowers into something that was only a thought in the past. With all this in mind, here are some flower technologies you may want to know more about.
Nanoflowers That Can Improve Our Eyesight
Richard Taylor from the University of Oregon is now developing nanoflowers that are capable of helping connect electronic chips to eye nerves. This can restore the eyesight of some people that have ocular diseases. Artificial neurons use nature patterns and look just like flowers.
Flower Robots
Robotic flowers, named Florabots, were showcased at the Taipei International Flora Exposition. They were manufactured by ASUS engineers. These robotic flowers include sound and motion detectors that allow them to respond to what visitors do. Every single robotic flower can sway to the music, alight, and perform other actions. Science practically works with art. Visitors used RFID Bracelets in order to print off special Florabot mementos.
Waterproof Materials
The leaves of lotus flowers are highly hydrophobic. This means that water droplets that fall on the leaves simply bounce off. Rises are capable of clinging to water droplets while in an upside-down position, an action known as the “rose petal effect”. Flower surfaces have long been studied with the purpose of creating surfaces that are non-adhesive.
Chuan-Hua Chen from Duke University is now studying lotus leaves. He and his team figured out that the structure of the leaves can lead to the development of highly-waterproof materials.
Power Flowers
NL Architects, a Dutch architectural firm, is working on Power Flowers, a design concept that aims to turn the common wind turbine into a design element, one that is actually desired by people. Regular wind turbines do not look great. In fact, most of us would not want to have them around. However, if the turbines would look like flowers, people would actually want to use them.
Flower Fuel
It is no secret that crops are now being grown in order to produce biofuel. However, one that is really interesting is mustard relative camelina. It is a yellow crop that cannot be eaten and that has extremely oily seeds. This crop might change the way we use biofuel in the future since the crop is highly scalable and even the US military is interested in using Camelina in order to develop aviation fuel.
