Hi friends!
Below you'll find everything you need to participate in our very first group project. On April 15th, we'll be running the same 19-minute plant biology experiment and submitting our data for collective analysis. Please run the experiment at your leisure and tag us on socials so we can see what you're up to! We're at @modernbiology101 and @pocketscion on insta. If something goes wrong, don't worry. Just close the program and start again. Including setup, this experience should take about half an hour. We'll also have the data uploaded to a public repository for anyone to analyze.
We hypothesize that the various stimuli we'll present to the plant will produce electrical responses that can be differentiated from the response to touch or simple mechanical movement using a consumer impedance sensor (the Pocket Scion!).
If we see consistent, stimulus-specific electrical signatures across a hundred participants worldwide, we'll have shown that our little device can detect and differentiate plant responses to human contact in real-world conditions. That's never been demonstrated before. That opens the door for all manner of exciting projects in the future.
Please download the following
Watch the walkthrough
It may also be helpful to watch this video where Tarun runs through all the experimental steps and demonstrates the different stimuli.
Submit your data
When your session ends, upload your .json file using the link below.
Submit your data ?Please have fun!!! And tag us! (@modernbiology101, @pocketscion). We'll share your explorations with the greater community.
Key References
Cooper, R.L., Thomas, M.A. & McLetchie, D.N. Impedance Measures for Detecting Electrical Responses during Acute Injury and Exposure of Compounds to Roots of Plants. Methods Protoc. 5, 56 (2022). doi.org/10.3390/mps5040056
Buss, E., Aust, T., Wahby, M., Rabbel, T.-L., Kernbach, S. & Hamann, H. Stimulus classification with electrical potential and impedance of living plants: comparing discriminant analysis and deep-learning methods. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics 18, 025003 (2023). doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/acbad2
Marzullo, T. et al. A library of electrophysiological responses in plants — a model of transversal education and open science. Plant Signaling & Behavior 19(1), 2310977 (2024). doi.org/10.1080/15592324.2024.2310977
Farmer, E.E. & Gao, Y.Q. Wound- and mechanostimulated electrical signals control hormone responses. New Phytologist 227, 1037–1050 (2020). doi.org/10.1111/nph.16646
Tran, D. et al. Electrophysiological assessment of plant status outside a Faraday cage using supervised machine learning. Scientific Reports 9, 17073 (2019). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-53675-4
Crichton, C.A. et al. Long-term on-leaf monitoring of plant electrophysiology with printed adhesive gel bioelectrodes. Communications Engineering (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s44172-026-00638-z
Meder, L. et al. Ultraconformable, Self-Adhering Surface Electrodes for Measuring Electrical Signals in Plants. Advanced Materials Technologies 6(7), 2001182 (2021). doi.org/10.1002/admt.202001182
Dziubinska, H., Paszewski, A., Trebacz, K. & Zawadzki, T. Electrical activity of the liverwort Conocephalum conicum: the all-or-nothing law, strength-duration relation, refractory periods and intracellular potentials. Physiologia Plantarum 57, 279–284 (1983).