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There's something I really, really don't understand. > The fabricated leaves did snag the bugs, but they didn’t hinder the insects’ movements quite as effectiv
by seu 3y ago
There's something I really, really don't understand.
> The fabricated leaves did snag the bugs, but they didn’t hinder the insects’ movements quite as effectively as the living plants. But the researchers are not deterred by these initial results. They plan to continue working on the problem and improving their product by more precisely incorporating the mechanical properties of the living trichomes.
Why not grow leaves and use those? Why do we need to make artificial replicas of the real thing, when we could grow the plant and A) get rid of bugs, B) Enjoy the beans and C) benefit from the nitrogen-fixing properties of the plant.
This obsession with creating artificial replicas of things that we know, because we want to have perfect, lab-conditions control of everything, is just crazy.
- nyagaga 3y agoYour idea is unfortunately less likely to move as much money for someone to create a startup and profit as much from it.
- yreg 3y agoa) Making artificial replikas and testing them out lets us learn something new and it is an interesting area for research b) Artificial leaves can be "painted" on continuous surfaces anywhere. E.g. on the foots of beds, inside the walls, doorstep, perhaps even luggage… c) Artificial leaves require less care and maintenance than bean plants. Come to think of it I don't understand at all how would you use actual live bean plants to protect a home from bedbugs.
- DoreenMichele 3y agob) Artificial leaves can be "painted" on continuous surfaces anywhere. E.g. on the foots of beds, inside the walls, doorstep, perhaps even luggage… Mmmmhmmm. It's basically like flypaper and they get stuck and die. Who would want products with the ability to kill bugs in a manner such that now they are permanently covered in dead bugs?
- yreg 3y ago>Who would want products with the ability to kill bugs in a manner such that now they are permanently covered in dead bugs? E.g. people who use flypaper.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoPeople who use flypaper are using a disposable product that gets thrown out. That's fundamentally different from "your bed or luggage now works like flypaper."
- yreg 3y agoNo, it's not? Bedbugpaper can be just as disposable.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoYes, but bedbugpaper is not at all what you described.
- yreg 3y agoIt is, you would usually want to have this user replacable/washable (that's why I said less maintenance than plants, not no maintenance). Although e.g. during construction it might make sense to install it even permanently. Anyway, my only point is that there might be possible applications where this technology fits better than the bean plants suggested by seu.
- pflanze 3y agoseu still has a good point. That there are mechanisms (like companies making more money via cheaper production/handling when scaling, or catering to careless customers) that lead us to use artificial products doesn't always (or even often?) mean that it's the better solution for us as a whole, long term. Because the drawbacks of artificial solutions may show up in places that the producers or consumers don't feel.
- ajuc 3y agoLeaves need to be replaced regularly. You'd have to transport them to places where you can't grow them. I'm not even sure it would be a benefit for the environment.
- eecc 3y agoYou can’t patent leaves
- throwaway290 3y agoAnd oil will not sell itself (those artificial ones are probably plastic)
- CoastalCoder 3y agoMonsanto enters the chat, gets a judge to shut chat down.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kuhewa 3y agoThe market for fresh kidney bean leaves wouldn't be big enough to justify shops keeping them in stock, growing bean plants would take weeks and typically be impractical otherwise due to space and seasonality constraints, bean leaves dry out quickly so you would need a constant supply to fight an infestation, and given they are a discrete size and you have limited options for how and where place them versus a synthetic tape...