Title: Streaming
Entry #: SAA 002
Category: Photography
Submitted by: Sijie Lin, Michelle L. Reid, Hong Luo & Pu-Chun Ke
Description:
This image, resembling a guitar finger board, displays the remarkable uptake of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (bright agglomerates) by the vascular system (tubular structure) of a rice plant. It offers first-hand evidence of nanomaterials discharged into the food chain and illustrates the potential impact of nanotechnology on human health.
Understanding the impact of nanotechnology on the environment is of increasing urgency and great scientific importance. Our team combines advanced methodologies and techniques in both plant biology and biophysics to explore the ecological consequences of discharged nanomaterials. Rice plants, a major food crop species, have been found in this research to readily integrate multiwalled carbon nanotubes through their vascular systems (tubular structure in the image), the plant compartments for water and nutrient uptake. During transport in the vascular systems, nanotubes transform and aggregate into microsized particles (bright agglomerates). They further display an intriguing periodic pattern which largely coincides with the partitions of the plant stem. This image offers the first evidence of nanomaterial uptake by the food chain and their subsequent transport and transformation driven by diffusion and water convection. This image opens the door for our understanding of the fate of nanomaterials in ecological systems, and ultimately, the impact of nanomaterials on human health.
NSF Career Award # CBET-0744040 (Ke, PI), NSF grant # CBET-0736037 (Ke, PI), and USDA grant #BRAG 2007-33522-18489 (Luo, PI).
