GMU:Synthetic Biology/My Flower

My Flower

Hello everyone. I'm Yu Xiaorui

This is the page for my project -- MY FLOWER

My Flower

This project is about to set up a system between human and plant in in-door areas.The gaol is to make plants interact with its owner and do aromatherapy for them.With the help of synthetic biology, it's quite possible to make one plants produce various kinds of fragrances. And release the one its host need under his/her current mood. To control the plant to make scent is not a big problem now. My main difficult is the way to connect plant and human. And it's also what I'am thinking so hard right now.

--Yu Xiaorui 17:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

About Pheromone

I try to find something about Pheromones on the internet.
There are kinds of Pheromones given off by animals.
But, as far as I know, there might not be that many from human.
The only one I am sure is sexual pheromone.
If any one of you know more about it,Please tell me!
Thanks!

Thanks Vanessa

Thank you for your reply!

You'r quite right,and your comment is just about my dilemma.
On one hand, I like the plant to adjust its scent for people without some intentional actions of the owner. So I design a sensor pill in the body.
But, on the other hand, I don't think to implant sensor is a good idea.So I think about a water pot later. But to use it, it's against my first requirement.

You suggestion about Pheromone is really good.If it works, that will be an ideal solution to my project.
but I still don't know how much can it do. Or if the plants can take reaction to human Pheromone.(Maybe it's possible with Synthetic biology)
I really think my Short knowledge of life science is a problem :(

I actually think about to use manual remote control to stop the plant or do something opposite when the automatic response is not what you want.Maybe I didn't make myself clear during the presentation.

Anyway,Thank you so much!It really helps！

--Yu Xiaorui 12:24, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

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'My Flower' response

Hey Yu,

I really liked the idea of your plant producing scents when people have certain problems. And I also liked the fact that the plant would produce the scent even in situations when we are not doing anything in particular with the plant itself.

It would be nice the plant would work without to much workload of it's owner. Because if your are stressed or ill or tired, I don't think you will have the nerves to programming your plant. It takes time!!!

The problem to let anybody know how you feel today, is not that big thing. There are so many meaning to essentials oils that it's hard to guess whats wrong with the plants owner.

For example lavender is used for aromatic therapie when:

• you are stressed and sleepless
• you are sick and injured, because its antiseptic
• you are depressed

But without any problem it can also be:

• good for your heart and skin
• relaxing, refreshing and stimulating

So I wouldn't care to much about that. Because there are a lot of people working with essential oils in their living area today *my mom for example* and I never heard 'ah Mrs. Walk thats lemongrass...are you feeling sick?'. Most people would think, 'ah that smells nice, really refreshing'.

But Sebastian is right, it should be possible to tell the plant to stop or to do the opposite of what it is doing already.

I thought may be *yeah may be* pheromones would be a good solution to it. wikipedia:pheromones

As you might know they are hormones normally found in body fluids like sweat or saliva to give others information about our body or attendance for sexual reproduction. Also plants use them to deliver special messages from one to another. May be you can give your plant when you don't like it to produce any scent or to produce the opposite scent a special mix of pheromones to let them know what you want.

I hope that I was able to be of assistance to you. (ahhh and please ignore the misspellings ^^haha)

--Vanessa 14:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

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Further idea

I thought about all the comments everybody made that day. And I come up with some new ideas.

Firstly, I try to discard the mechanical part of the project,try to combine the analyze function to the plant.
But, unfortunately, I didn't find any thing can prove that plants can detecting data of human.
And to tell one's emotion by analyzing is quite demanding and complex.
I think plants can only collect some external data such as temperature and breath, which is not sufficient.
So, I think it may still need some technical support out side form the plant.

Then, given the suggestion form Sebastian,This process should not be automatically. The owner should decide when to take the test.
Based on this, What come up into my mind is that I can use a water pot instead.
Every time people feel like to have a aromatherapy, they just water the plant.
And I think it can use the technology from the yogurt pot.
Every time you grab the handle it will take sample and start to analyze.

Other than that, I read the article about artificial life on wiki.
I don't know if we can make a super smart plant which knows the owner's mood and do some thing for him.

--Yu Xiaorui 11:56, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

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Review for 20-05-2010

My introduction today

1. My Flower sets up a system between people and flower(or plants) at in-door-area.
2. Explain 3 questions:
   1. Why flowers smell good?--Because some cells produce Chemicals.
   2. How can we tell somebody's mood?--By analyze body data.
   3. What's the connection between Fragrance and mood?--Aromatherapy.
3. Explain how My Flower works.
   1. It make up with two part -- the sensor and the plant.
   2. The sensor will be installed into human body. It will analyze host's data form time to time to tell their mood.
   3. Then the data will send to a receiver bond to the plant.
   4. The plant composed with various genes from different flowers.So it can give off different smells as need.And these cells can be controlled by computer with electricity.
   5. According to the host's mood, certain cells will act to make fragrance. Then the host get feed back through the air.
   6. It can be controlled manually as well.

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Comments from others:

1. Sebastian suggests me to change the mechanical sensor part to a more Biological way to get the host's data.
2. Pro. Damm said besides the decoration usage, flower also play a gift role in peoples' social life. Maybe I can pay some attention combining the aroma function with this aspect of it.
3. Dominik: I completely agree with Sebastian concerning the sensor part. As a rough suggestion, again from the scientific side: What about genetically modified neurons? They would recognize temperature changes, hormone concentration and other thinks in the human blood. As neurons are able to actively change their cell membrane potential, they could be used to transfer information to a computer via electric pulses.

Please give me you opinions and suggestion!
Thanks a lot!

--Yu Xiaorui 17:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

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