Scientific Items:

1. Bionic Roses with electronic implants: “The scientists want to make tools for biologists to record or regulate plant physiology—the plant equivalent of medical implants such as pacemakers. Berggren started by submerging the cut end of a rose stem into a solution of PEDOT, a conducting polymer that is commonly used in printable electronics and is soluble in water. Capillary action pulls the polymer up into the rose’s vascular tissue or xylem. There, the polymer came out of solution and self-assembled into wires, some as long as 10 centimetres. By attaching gold probes coated with PEDOT to the wires, the researchers made individual transistors and demonstrated a simple digital circuit using the switches.”

2. The numbers surprised me in this article on waste disposal in Singapore: 2% of our solid waste is sent to landfills, 38% is used to generate electricity and the remaining 60% recycled. (The figures for the US are 53% landfill, 13% electricty, 34% recycling.)

3. Finally, David Tennant explains the theory of general relativity in this animation by Eoin Duffy, Jamie Lochhead and Anais Rassat. (It takes a Time Lord, obviously.)