DAPRA (Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) wants to conduct bioengineering operations on common plants to turn them into spies.
DARPA is one of the most unusual government agencies in the United States. At various times, it showed the public designs for cardboard drones, drones destroyed by sunlight, brain implants to improve memory, homing bullets, growing and self-repairing houses, and much more. This time, the Office decided to create spy plants.
The program is called Advanced Plant Technologies (APT). Its goal is not to create a ficus that will spy on you, but to develop organic "covert, self-sustaining sensors" that can track and report threats based on "environmental stimuli". The agency says it views the flora as "the next generation of scouts," although DARPA now only wants their special-purpose flowers to detect electromagnetic waves, pathogens, radiation, harmful chemicals and nuclear threats. The agency believes that the new plants will also benefit civilians in some countries. For example, they will be able to identify infantry mines.
Based on the information shared by DARPA, the program will use existing equipment and satellites to remotely monitor the response of genetically modified plants.
“Plants sense changes in their environment and naturally exhibit physiological responses to basic stimuli like light and temperature, but also in some cases to touch, chemicals, parasites and pathogens,” says Blake Beckstine, ART program manager. "New molecular and modeling technologies are making it possible to reprogram these plant capabilities to a wider range of stimuli, which not only opens up new opportunities for exploration, but also reduces the risk to personnel and the costs associated with traditional sensors."
The first trials of the new technology are planned for next year, so perhaps spy plants will soon become a reality.
Nikolay Kudryavtsev