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Science Technology

Toyota Develops New Plant Species 229

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the green-not-just-a-paint-option dept.
oznigot writes "Yes, that's Toyota, the car company. In what appears to be a publicity stunt to promote their hybrid vehicle technology Toyota has developed a new species of plant. Of the Cherry Sage shrub family, the new plant absorbs nitrogen oxide and other substances from the air better than the original Cherry Sage." Update: 10/16 00:01 GMT by Z : Original link removed.
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Toyota Develops New Plant Species More

Toyota Develops New Plant Species

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  • How long before... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How long before we have giant hydroponic farms full of these plants just cleaning the air?

    • Much, much too long, I suspect.

    • Either someone is very a quick hacker, or this was a pre-planned exploit, but the article redirects to goatse. Now lets watch Slashdot's finest (the so-called editors) take a couple of hours to correct this.

    • Just nitpicking.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nietsch ( 112711 )

      But how has this been achieved? A new species, not just a new variety?
      Evolutionary biologists will be jumping with joy as actual speciation has not been observed very often in the wild. Doing it in the lab/greenhouse is a very big feat, if this is not just a journalist with intelligence on par with their html injection security?

      One definition of 'species' is that it can not reproduce with another species. If it is still able to reproduce with the parent species, it is not a separate species but a variety.

      • I was right there with you until the end:
        A SUV with a pinto-quality fueltank and a boot full of 'killing you softly' cigarettes would be much more beneficial for the environment :-)

        Bill Bennett:
        if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

        Just saying...

  • Who could ask for anything more? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Toyota!

  • Dude! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:38PM (#13799315)
    > the new plant absorbs nitrogen oxide and other substances from the air better than the original Cherry Sage.

    But unfortunately releases them again when you smoke it.

  • Hmmn, this brings to mind if other car makers ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by nihilistcanada ( 698105 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:40PM (#13799319)
    start to develope plants as well. Can you recall a tree for safety problems?

  • Yeah! (Score:4, Funny)

    by brilinux ( 255400 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:40PM (#13799323) Journal
    We should plant a bunch of these near a city to absorb the pollution and so that we can cut them all down to build new developments! Fun!
    • Cute. Actually, plants contribute tremendously to mitigating urban pollution and elevating O2 levels; the closer to the source (cars,) the better. Planting sturdy varieties along urban boulevards makes the air more breatheable and enhances the whole "feng shui" thing. If you're indoors, the ubiquitous spider plant is the best air cleaner. Ferns are prolific emitters of negative ions, which improve our oxygen uptake and elevate our moods. What a pity it is that we treat these organisms upon which our li

  • wait (Score:5, Funny)

    by 42Penguins ( 861511 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:42PM (#13799332)
    Of the Cherry Sage shrub family, the new plant absorbs nitrogen oxide and other substances from the air better than the original Cherry Sage.

    Does this mean that the famed "intelligent designer" is really Toyota?
    I welcome our new Cherry Sage developing Japanese overlords.

  • It should be noted.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by linux_warp ( 187395 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:43PM (#13799335) Homepage
    It should be noted that the car division of Toyota did not create this plant, but rather a company they own: "Toyota Roof Garden Co". Not sure why it is such great news that a gardening company made a plant..

    • Re:It should be noted.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      From the article:
      Toyota Motor Corp said Thursday it has developed a new species of the Cherry Sage shrub family
      and
      will be sold for 380 yen per pot through Toyota Roof Garden Co, a Toyota Motor subsidiary.
      So it looks like Toyota Motor Copr did create the plant and will be selling it through a subsidiary.
    • Hey, most plant companies make plants -- but not ones that reduce pollution. As an organic gardener amongst other things, I like it that I can get pretty much what I want in certain areas -- and I only mildly complain that some of it is hybrid and won't breed true so I can save seeds. That's a lot of bother that's rarely worth it. But this is a new thing, and a good direction, assuming it's truly an improvement. As a sometimes "farmer" I never thought oxides of nitrogen raining down on my garden were a

  • The conversation in PR... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kosmicki ( 770049 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:46PM (#13799351)
    "We need a way to promote our new hybrid."

    "Recycling campaign?"

    "Nah, we need something different..."

    "How about a tree..."

    "What? Plant a tree?"

    "No... We make a new one!"

    "But we make automobiles..."

    "Exactly, no one will see it coming!"

    "How many botanists do we have on staff again? Oh, that's right, NONE!"

    "Relax, I'm sure a few guys on the line do it as a hobby."

  • Where does it go? (Score:5, Funny)

    by CRC'99 ( 96526 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:46PM (#13799352) Homepage
    ok, so this new GE plant absorbs more stuff from the air.... where does this go? What does the plant do with it? Does it release the same amount of stuff that it absorbed when it dies? Does it turn it into something else?
    • ok, so this new GE plant absorbs more stuff from the air.... where does this go? What does the plant do with it? Does it release the same amount of stuff that it absorbed when it dies? Does it turn it into something else?



      It probably stores it and converts it into energy.

    • NOX (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dj245 ( 732906 )
      Nitrogen Oxides are created by industrial power generation plants (read: power plants) as a product of incomplete combustion. You can have scrubbers, and filters, and electrostatic precipitators [rogertheshrubber.net], but some inevitably gets out (1-2% of stack gasses). I believe it is a greenhouse gas. 1-2% does not seem like much, but a tremendous amount of gas is created by the combustion processes. It adds up fast when you have a few LM2500 gas turbines that drain an 18-wheeler of natural gas in around 20 minutes.... at i
    • ...goatse! Of course, the real question is, for the love of god, WHY???

  • In the other news.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by CSHARP123 ( 904951 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:47PM (#13799357)
    Friday, October 7, 2005 at 05:00 JST NAGOYA -- Toyota Motor Corp said Thursday it has developed a new species of the Cherry Sage shrub family that effectively absorbs harmful substances in the air. The new species, called Kirsch Pink, will be sold for 380 yen per pot through Toyota Roof Garden Co, a Toyota Motor subsidiary, from March next year. While Cherry Sage plants are known to absorb nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and other harmful substances in the air, the new species does so 1.3 times more effectively, the automaker said.

    In the other news GM said it has developed a new species of "Chevy" Sage Shrub family. The new "Chevy" will be sold for $350 per "pot". People can smoke this "Pot" and absorb all the oxides like nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide that are good for the health.

  • In Other News (Score:3, Funny)

    by schwaang ( 667808 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:49PM (#13799365)
    2005 models of the Toyota Cherry Sage are being recalled [latimes.com] because of a software glitch that causes them to stall or shut down.

    Toyota will notify [Cherry Sage] owners by mail that they can take the [shrub] to a dealership for free repairs, said Allison Takahashi, a spokeswoman at Toyota's Torrance-based U.S. operation.

  • Hybrids shifting attention (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Y-Crate ( 540566 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @06:53PM (#13799378)
    This is somewhat on topic, so if you disagree with me posting it, just leave it un-modded in +2 semi-obscurity

    With the rise of larger and larger vehicles, and the questions that have arisen regarding their impact, most of the attention has been focused squarely on the fuel economy issues. Now, I will be the first one to admit that the matter of gas consumption needs to be taken seriously and many vehicles out there are a simply irresponsible purchase with gas prices being what they are, even if the people buying them can afford to fill them. The rise in demand is increasing prices for everyone.

    So, hybrids are being rushed onto the scene as fast as possible. Great, eh?

    Not quite.

    By addressing the fuel economy problem and thinking that it is the end of the concerns with the larger vechicles on the road, we are ignoring the most important of them all, which is the danger they pose on the road to other drivers.

    Link [suv.org]

    Federal information shows that although light trucks account for one-third of all registered vehicles, traffic crashes between a light truck and any other vehicle now account for the majority of fatalities in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. Of the 5,259 fatalities caused when light trucks struck cars in 1996, 81 percent of the fatally injured were occupants of the car.(9) In multiple-vehicle crashes, the occupants of the car are four times more likely to be killed than the occupants of the SUV.(10) In a side-impact collision with an SUV, car occupants are 27 times more likely to die.(11)

    This study was very important because it examined how many car occupants killed in accidents with SUVs might have survived had the accidents involved passenger cars weighing the same as SUVs. This is in important finding, because auto manufacturers have maintained that the weight of SUVs make them dangerous to smaller cars, not the design. The NHTSA study concludes that 2,000 people would have survived if their vehicles had been hit by a heavy car instead of a heavy SUV. Two thousand is five percent of the nation's annual traffic fatalities. The study declares that light trucks and SUVs are twice as likely to cause a fatality in the struck car than a passenger car of comparable weight.(13)

    In response to studies like this, automakers have begun saying they will make changes to make SUVs more compatible with other cars. When Ford Motor Company introduced it's new monster, the Excursion (19 feet long, 6 1/2 feet wide, and weighing in at 8,500 pounds), Ford added a front beam and a rear tow hitch to prevent other vehicles from sliding under the Excursion during an accident. The Excursion will be the largest SUV on the market and could be extremely dangerous in an accident with a smaller vehicle since almost every vehicle on the road is smaller. Ford has not added the safety beam to its other SUVs.

    The compatibility issue is not confined to crashes. The size and design of SUVs raises other safety issues. For instance, placement of headlights is a serious nuisance and a potential safety problem. On large SUVs, the headlights are mounted higher than on cars. Large SUVs have headlights mounted 36 to 39 inches above the ground - the same height as the side mirror on a small car. The glare from SUVs' headlights can appear to other drivers as bright as high beams. Glare can be 10 to 20 times worse than recommended levels when headlights are at the height of a driver's eyes or side mirror, according to a study by the Society of Automotive Engineers. (14)


    Yes, the site is biased, but their sources are another matter.

    It's ironic to think that with the introduction of more hybrids, we will see more SUVs on the road, which will increase the death rate for drivers all across the U.S.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • While it's true that large SUVs increase fatalities with smaller cars, it seems that as adoption increases we'll eventually have mostly SUVs and be back to ground zero.

        The problem is that "building a better tank" only gets you so far. That's why cars have designed crumple areas, side impact protection, and airbags. Your car is more likely to be totalled in an accident, but you're much more likely to survive because your car absorbed most of the energy. A body-on-frame style truck/SUV (like your Subur

        • Are roll bars and proper 4 point safety harnesses the answer to problems with cars rolling over. I know it helps in NASCAR. I've seen cars roll over multiple times, and drivers walk away. The question is, if they can mandate 4 point safety harnesses, and special seating for babies, why can't they mandate safer seat belts for adults? If they put as much technology into the seating for the driver as they did for those babies, then i'm sure deaths would be reduced, as would the seriousness of most of the i
    • This is something to think about. Things would have been different 10+ years ago, but the situation is clear for me now. I'm 22, and I drive a mini-van. I'd hate to drive a compact or something because of all the headlights in my eyes (as mentioned, by the trucks, mini-vans, and SUVs). I'd be terrified if I was in a crash (honda civic + hummer + 70 mph = dented hummer + hunk of scrap). I wouldn't feel safe buying a small car (even a volvo or something like that) because of this fact.

      Now thanks to the laws

    • So, hybrids are being rushed onto the scene as fast as possible.

      I saw a hybrid in 1987 at a small unversity in Australia - so much for a rush.

      It's ironic to think that with the introduction of more hybrids, we will see more SUVs on the road

      I don't really understand the logic - if someone is buying for fuel economy wouldn't they go for a light car instead of a light truck? For those few individuals who could use a light truck one that uses less fuel also makes sense. The idiot who uses a truck for nothing

      • A Chevy S10, 2wd, with the 4 cylinder engine can get as much as 33 mpg on the highway. That is as good as many tiny cars. (Sure the Geo Metro got 45, but that is a rare exception) reference [fueleconomy.gov] (Yes I know the reference lists 28mpg - I used to have a 1988 model that got 33, emission controls are tighter now accounting to the difference)

  • So they're trying to genetically engineer some plants that will better absorb the toxins that are emitted by their cars. How about eliminating the emission of toxins in the first place. Imagine if a company sold you some software that damages your computer, only to then sell you some more software to repair those damages. Oh, wait...
    • come and wave her wand, and solve all of our problems with her magic?

      Do you not know that thousands of people are working on the very thing you suggest, including numerous people at Toyota?
      • Do you not know that thousands of people are working on the very thing you suggest, including numerous people at Toyota?

        Really? I didn't know. For I have been living on Mars for the past 10 years, in a cave, with my eyes shut, and my fingers in my ears.

        Since you actually took the time to ask me that question, I'll clarify: my point was not that they should start working on lowering toxic emissions, but that they should focus on lowering toxic emissions and not on removing the toxins after the fact.

        • The funny thing is they know how to clean all those emissions. The problem is the cost to clean it up is much greater than the cost of dealing with the consequences.
          • I'd love to know what your solution is. We cannot produce a viable (by which I mean big enough, safe enough, and powerful enough to attract significant customers) that does not produce NOx, at any price.
        • In many cases, it is easier to pollute and clean than not pollute.

          Case in point. It is much cheaper to plant a tree to soak up the CO2 you breathe out than it is to waste society's investment in you by putting a bullet in your brain.

  • Genomic Pollution (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @07:00PM (#13799415) Homepage Journal
    "the new species does so 1.3 times more effectively"

    Why doesn't Toyota just spend the time and money cultivating the natural species, increasing its biomass by 30%? Maybe by planting it all around their car factories, to compensate for the vast pollution their machines spew into the sky every day. Without tinkering with yet another complex global ecosystem they don't understand?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • That 30% more biomass is made of CO2 which the plants clean from the air. Which is good, unless this is "POLLUTION SEQUESTRATION IS COOL ONLY WHEN ITS NOT GREENHOUSE", in which case we're all dead.
    • How moronic can you get? They tell us to stop GMOs and use plants that are a result of 'natural' breeding methods. We do that. And now they tell us we shouldn't even do that. It's a frickin' plant for God's sake. How is this (1) not natural? and (2) tinkering with the ecosystem? Maybe you'd like us all to go back to eating wild rabbits (hunted of course), nuts and berries.
      • The article doesn't specify Toyota's "development" technique for their plant - nor do the hundreds of uncritical quotes of their PR across the Web. I suppose that it is possible that Toyota might have created a new species in a few years with intensive breeding, changing only its NOx absorbtion processes. But it's a safe bet that they engineered its genes with recombinant DNA, or they'd have announced that they didn't use much more common genegineering techniques. And they'd have announced much more intere
      • I really don't get the whole scare with GMO. We have been genetically modifiying all of our farm stuff for thousands of years. Mind you, we didn't know about DNA, but through selective breeding, we managed to change a lot of stuff to the point where it's completely unrecognizable from the original species that we planted. One good example is Maize, aka corn. Originally, too small to even bother cultivating, now through domestication has reach a size quite good for eating. We are now able to modify thin [wikipedia.org]

  • Yes, that's Toyota, the car company

    ...will be sold for 380 yen per pot through Toyota Roof Garden Co, a Toyota Motor subsidiary, from March next year...

    Amazing! Toyota, the car company (not Toyota Roof Garden Co, or Toyota Research) devised this plant. I don't see what's so amazing about this, companies have been making stuff through subsidaries for a long time now. Mitsubishi make pens and other office equipment. Yes, that's Mitsubishi, the car company.

    It's nothing new to have subsidaries, get over it

  • Improve mileage (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Belseth ( 835595 )
    They'd accompish more simply improving mileage. The fact that an electrical engineer on his own with a few grand worth of batteries and adding a recharging feature improved gas mileage to 200mpg just proves that there is resistence to improving mileage. Not to sound star chamber but the only thing that makes sense is the car and gas companies are working together on this one. The hybrides all originally came out of Japan because american oil companies have less influence there. With the amount of driving I

  • Goatse link (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shird ( 566377 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @07:11PM (#13799460) Homepage Journal
    Nice.... the main article now links to the goatse man. Some guy playing with his redirecting no doubt. Mind you, it does kinda look like some flesh eating virus/plant thing. Great for work.
    • Wow. Someone managed to get a goatse link in a submission (I can't imagine that they worked that quickly on the hacking the destination or XSS to get it in there). Amazing.

      This confirms it - Slashdot really is dead.
    • Looks to be javascript in the article itself somewhere. Disabling javascript prevents redirection, and it seems to only happen on -that- article on japantoday, not all of their articles. I didn't look further, but perhaps their discussion forum stuff got hijacked?
    • This is just one of the reasons you should TURN OFF JAVASCRIPT. It is so very, very rarely used productively, in ways that HTML/CSS can't be used instead. And it is so very, very commonly used destructively, against users.

      But will people turn off javascript? No, they'll add just one more work-around to prevent this specific form of attack, and then another one when the next attack comes along.

      Just shut the damn scripting OFF, and the internet is a much nicer place.
  • The link redirects to http://goatse.ca/ [goatse.ca]
  • If there's anyone left on slashdot who hasn't seen goatse, they've just had their innocence shattered.
    • My freaking' brain has just been orafucked by that link. Oh where is the number to my therapist. :P

      ~X~

    • Re:Bad Redirect (Score:5, Funny)

      by glsunder ( 241984 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @07:40PM (#13799598)
      actually, I heard a screech from my pregnant wife while I was going into the kitchen. I thought some sort of animal got inside the house. She'd never seen the pic before. She was expecting to see a cherry sage plant, not a cherry ass pic plant.
    • I was surfing the net at a place that had no firewall and out manager didn't care.
      So there were lke 7 of us surfing some site, (steakandcheese.com i think) and we're all going through the funny pics and videos. Then the guy next to goes "OH GOD!" and he closes his window and clears his cache. We all looked at him and were like "WTF?". He's like, "that was a the WORST thing I've ever seen". He doesn't remember the name of the picture, and he cleared his history also, so we can't look at hi list of visite

  • Bad javascript (Score:1, Redundant)

    by garvon ( 32299 )
    WATCH OUT there is a goatse.ca redirect on that page

  • Goatse Linked (Score:2, Informative)

    by crypto55 ( 864220 )
    The page died before I could continue loading; my WiFi is bad in my room. But FF told me that the link to goatse.ca died...
    Look at the source of the page.
    " Japan Today - News - Toyota devises shrub to purify, cool airwindow.location="http://goatse.ca/""
    Someone hacked the page to redirect to the Goatse.

  • pwned! (Score:3, Informative)

    by __aaahtg7394 ( 307602 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @07:25PM (#13799524)
    Awesome, some jackass got into their db and changed the title slightly:

    $ wget 'http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&id=3513 99' -O - | grep title

    <title>Japan Today - News - Toyota devises shrub to purify, cool air<script>window.location="http://goatse.ca/" </script> - Japan's Leading International News Network</title>

  • Some more pictures are here... (Score:4, Funny)

    by mikael ( 484 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @07:26PM (#13799525)
    Vans [switchimage.com]

    Family cars [greaseworks.org]

    Classic cars [jaykevin.com]
  • Greenpeace Crolis?

    (This ain't offtopic or a troll... old school Anime fans might know why I say that, lol!)

  • article text (got it with lynx -- no goatse.ca) (Score:3, Informative)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @07:32PM (#13799546) Homepage Journal
    Toyota devises shrub to purify, cool air

          Friday, October 7, 2005 at 05:00 JST
          NAGOYA -- Toyota Motor Corp said Thursday it has developed a new
          species of the Cherry Sage shrub family that effectively absorbs
          harmful substances in the air.

          The new species, called Kirsch Pink, will be sold for 380 yen per pot
          through Toyota Roof Garden Co, a Toyota Motor subsidiary, from March
          next year. While Cherry Sage plants are known to absorb nitrogen
          oxide, sulfur dioxide and other harmful substances in the air, the new
          species does so 1.3 times more effectively, the automaker said.

  • And of course... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @07:38PM (#13799584)
    Today would be the day I actually try to RTFA.... *shudder*
  • Slipping goatse onto the front page of slashdot... impressive :D

    (yes, I realise it wasn't necessarily the article submitter who did it, but whoever hacked the remote site deserves troll of the year :D)

    smash.

  • NAGOYA; Toyota Motor Corp said Thursday it has developed a new species of the Cherry Sage shrub family that effectively absorbs harmful substances in the air. The new species, called Kirsch Pink, will be sold for 380 yen per pot through Toyota Roof Garden Co, a Toyota Motor subsidiary, from March next year. While Cherry Sage plants are known to absorb nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and other harmful substances in the air, the new species does so 1.3 times more effectively, the automaker said.
  • That's all well and good, but does it have a hemi?
  • A SHUBBERY!!!!!

    One that looks nice and is not too expensive. Ideally, there'd be a second one as well, slightly higher than the first, creating a two-tier effect. With a path in the middle.
  • I couldn't find any mention in the article or other linked articles that explained how Totoya created this new plant, but I suspect that this is the result of regular ol' breeding. The article doesn't even use the word species at all. I suppose it is possible for them to have created a new species, if they were tinkering down at the DNA level, but that seems like a lot of work for a publicity stunt. I think what we have here is just a new breed.

    The article also doesn't mention how this shrub stacks up

    • It's possible to create new species through selective breeding. I suspect that you are correct, and that this cherry sage varietal can be interbred with the original cherry sage, but speciation is possible to force. Also, if the offspring are sterile, then speciation has occurred. This is why we consider the horse and donkey to be different species -- the mule is sterile.

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