What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

An Interesting Opportunity

Vbkid

Getting There...
This week I began my senior year in college. I am majoring in Nuclear Engineering, and am taking an upper level lab course. In the class, we are allowed to design a semester long laboratory utilizing our reactor. Basically, this means we have the opportunity to irradiate things and run experiments with them. My lab group (3 of us) has already decided we would like to irradiate either seeds or soil at different levels, and see how the plants grow, lethal dose of the seeds, radiation in the full grown plant, etc...we are also considering irradiating invertebrates and watching them develop.

With this opportunity in mind, I immediately though of carnivorous plants and whether we might tailor this experiment specifically towards them. I am very open to any comments, thoughts, or ideas anyone might have to help. Keep in mind that will will be needing to measure quantitative features in the grown plants/seeds.

Thanks,
vbkid
 
There's a post floating around the web of Nepenthes pitchers that glow in the dark due to some sort of DNA trans location. Would be cool if you were able to obtain a stable mutation longterm. Though nothing x-men style will occur, any abnormalities in the progenies will be neat to observe.
Your quickest results would be with Drosera seeds. D. capensis seeds are quite easy to get a hold of if you're looking for certain names. You'll also be able to observe a whole life cycle of the plant unike with a Nepenthes or Sarracenia.
Sounds like a neat project, keep up us to date on the progress!
 
Wow, this sounds very interesting. I, too, would like to hear of your results. :)
 
At the very least, our group will be running experiments on some type of small plant at least, possibly beans or something of that nature. No matter what I expect the results to be interesting to those who frequent this forum and will do my best to keep you all updated. Probably will be a few weeks before a final project is decided upon, accepted, and initiated.

vbkid
 
wow you should try a vft and see if you can make it grow 3 feet tall.. Good luck in your test results!!! :)
 
If you do go with a carnivorous plant I also agree to try going with something very hardy and vigorous to start with like capensis. Although beans may be more feasible for ease, but if you did get viable gerimination with carnivores with mutated phenotypes...potentially neat-o.

I would expect the major outcome to be increased in-viability of the seeds before seeing any unusual growth habits so if you start with something a bit touchy like nepenthes which can be hit or miss to germinate without radiation it would be a disappointment if nothing grows but that was not even due to radiation at all just the batch of seeds.

I never head of the glowing nepenthes...where is that from? Does it really glow as in they inserted GFP or the green (ish) color just "appears as though it glows in the dark"...I've read some plant descriptions that were along those lines and was rather bummed when the pic never lives up to the description. Even the GFP danios are not nearly as vivid as I had hoped...Although the pink ones are better and I guess now that they are breeding using a gold danio background instead of normal zebra it is better to see the fluorescent colors but still, advertisement is usually better than reality.

I would think a transgenic nepenthes would be awesome but a little quick searching I couldn't find an article in which GFP was inserted into nepenthes. I'd like to see the pic/source of that.
 
Kinda reminds me of this thread on the PitcherPlants Forum... glowing Nepenthes! :-O
 
YES! Clue found the thread. It was driving me nuts, I couldnt remember the forum and google was being fruitless. That is the thread indeed. It's not a genetic trick but just the use of some glowsticks as Sam admits but I'm sure with the use of some plasmids and some bio-luminescent algae something similar could be created. It does have a VERY neat look at first sight though : ) Thanks for digging this up Clue.
 
  • #10
I think allegedhuman has the right idea. While it's really cool to think about all the monster mutant man-eating plants that could come out of radiation exposure....more realistically, any effect will be rather subtle. For example, if it affects the plant's ability to reproduce, you simply wouldn't have enough time to see the effects on something like a Nepenthes.

If you do something like a D. capensis, you'll have time to observe the plant flowering, setting seed, and whether the seeds germinate. (and compare to a control group) A semester isn't all that long...keep it simple, and you'll be more likely to see something interesting.
 
  • #11
This thread if way out of my league but I THINK it sounds fascinating :)

Good luck with it and keep us informed. If you decide to do anything with capensis sign me up to provide you with a few plants lol

Phil
 
Back
Top