The First Plant Selfie: A Camera Powered by Bioenergy

We have plenty of reasons to expand our knowledge of bioenergy and other alternative energy sources, and the latest news takes us... to the world of photography. It might seem strange, but a group of researchers at ZSL London Zoo has created the first camera powered by a plant's energy, a development that could revolutionize conservation efforts. How did they evaluate it? By configuring the system so that the plant accumulates energy and takes selfies...

Cars, planes, televisions, computers, the smartphone you're reading this on, your own body. Everything needs energy in one way or another. Ideally, that energy should be abundant, cheap, and clean, an equation that has proven very difficult to balance. However, nature knows how to generate energy, and above all, knows how to use it more efficiently.

So, we have a thing or two to learn. As we reduce the consumption of our devices, new application possibilities open up in spaces that were previously inaccessible. For example, if you want to install a camera in the forest today, you'll most likely need to add a battery and a solar panel to that setup. Now, how does a camera capable of using a plant's energy sound?

A group of researchers from ZSL London Zoo teamed up with the American company Xnor.ai to create a camera that feeds on a plant's energy. The 'participant' of the experiment is a fern named Pete, located in the zoo's "Rainforest Life" exhibit. Pete received microbial fuel cells, and as it grew throughout the summer, it deposited biomass into the soil, which in turn feeds the natural bacteria present in it. That creates energy harnessed by the fuel cells, enough to power cameras, sensors, and other remote tools.

The pilot test involved configuring the system so that Pete takes a selfie every 20 seconds on average. In fact, the researchers even made a photobomb or two of the fern Pete. The combination of this ultra-efficient camera and the energy cells works much better than expected, and the next step is to try to reproduce the results outside the exhibit, in a real forest.

Source: PetaPixel