Golden insights from a Pothos
Since the beginning of this experiment I have dreamed of the possibilities of enhancing human perception via biosignals from other living beings. And while that vision stays as solid as before, I have come to certain important sensing perceptions. Highly influenced by the book "The secret Life of plants" I have been mostly interested in the sensing of plant's/fungi's electrictical activities, engaging mainly with one simple sensor. Fast forwarding a few years and a lot of learning... I managed to assemble what I called the SymBioSense - Plant Biologger. Making use of more advanced sensors, this setup was designed for the reading of multiple biometric parameters from different parts of the plant. And with it in hands I started testing it with varied plants. Most relevant here was the test I did with a Golden Pothos.
August 16th marked the beginning of a continuous data gathering period with the SymBioSense Plant Biologger and the golder pothos. However, an unfortunate surprise appeared upfront: the malfunctioning of the galvanometer (biodata sonification) sensor from electricity for progress. In a way, this whole endeavor started because of this particular sensor, as it always stood for me as one of the main references for plant sensing, so it was very frustating not to see it working.
Despite such challenges, I kept the sensor stack working for almost a week, logging data to the dedicated online database. But I ended the experiment upon realizing that some of the sensors were actually hurting the plant. Their leaves were being damaged in contact with the electrodes, as well as their roots:
With the setup disconnected, I started debugging the galvanometer. I revisited everything, from software to hardware. And to be honest I still haven't found exactly what is wrong with the galvanometer. Sometimes it works, and other times it doesn't, despite different test with power supply, accompanying sensors, types of electrodes and plants, etc.
In any case, the most important perception that has emerged within me is that this sensing apparatus is likely interfering with the plants "natural" dynamics, be it through the inputting of electric current / light into the plant, or by blocking leaf surface areas. Such interferences are no news in the biologging universe. And one may argue that they are irrelevant interference depending on the size/shape of the plant, but the issue is that I currently don't know how to access such an impact.
"Most importantly, sensor attachment to the leaf should not interfere with the signals emanating from adjacent sensors and the stomatal function (keeping natural light, temperature, and humidity conditions unaltered)." (Banerji et al. 2023)
So what now?
I've been inquiring about alternative well tested plant sensors, as well as contactless means to derive meaningful insights about a plant's state and or activity. The groundbreaking findings on airborne ultrasonic sound emissions by plants has been a beacon of light, as well as image analisis approaches. But these alternatives seem a bit out my reach at the moment - due to resource constraints on my end and/or technical developments with the equipments themselves. For instance, even thought there are really exciting promises for ultrasonic sound readings from plants, existing hardware does not support live wireless data transmission of such data.
Still, there's an argument to be made that even with the aforementioned interferences - and especially if they can be mitigated - the Symbiosense Plantbiologger can reveal meaningful things about plants physiology. So I'll most likely continue testing it with different plants (and fungi), perhaps adjusting the full stack to fewer sensor and hopefully fully debugging the galvanometer (or even buy an new, already assembled one). Another task at hand is processing the data collected from the golde pothos. Even thought it is corrupted due to the slow degradation of the parts of the plants connected to the electrodes, it may reveal interesting insights. But all of this will most likely take some time and evolve in a slower pace, as a newer path for the symbiotic new senses research is openning up:
Dogs are calling
During the campaign for this experiment I have had the great fortune of connecting with Akash Kuldog. Via Dognosis, he is designing non-invasive canine BSI systems (powered by EEG/fNIRS and AI) to begin to decipher the canine mind in real time. Our relationship has quickly evolved towards a partnership, connecting the canine BSI and the human haptic interface, which is currently being developed in the scope of buildspace. This is my main calling at the moment. Not only for the opportunities at hand (including the initial goals of publishing papers and arriving at a commercial version of the symbioware), but also because of Akash himself, which is an awesome person. And because of dogs! So chances are that I'll be sharing a lot more on dogs over here moving forward.
Hello, there...
Well, if you've read thus far, chances are that you either know me personally and/or you have a deep interest/technical knowledge related to this quest. Either way, I'd actually really appreciate hearing from you on all this. What do you think about everything that I've shared in this labnote? Any recommendations you'd give me? You can use the comments section here to share any thoughts, or reach me privately over whatever channel we usually communicate. In all cases, thank you very much for your attention and watch out for what's to come!
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