Singapore researchers control Venus flytraps using smartphones

A Venus flytrap is seen rigged with two electrodes during an experiment in a lab at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore April 27, 2021. Picture taken April 27, 2021. REUTERS/Joseph Campbell

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Researchers in Singapore have found a way of controlling a Venus flytrap using electric signals from a smartphone, an innovation they hope will have a range of uses from robotics to employing the plants as environmental sensors.

Luo Yifei, a researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU), showed in a demonstration how a signal from a smartphone app sent to tiny electrodes attached to the plant could make its trap close as it does when catching a fly.