ms. mandrake

fiatluxemburg:

Toyota, who’s Prius is easy on the environment to drive but horrible on it to make, has engineered a new type of flower to help shoulder some of the damage their factories are spitting out.

The sage derivative’s leaves have unique characteristics that absorb harmful gases, while the gardenia’s leaves create water vapour in the air, reducing the surface temperature of the factory surrounds and, therefore, reducing the energy needed for cooling, in turn producing less carbon dioxide (CO2).

[via Giz]

Ahhh, so many things!

1. who’s —> whose

2. They didn’t engineer a new type of flower, they engineered a new type of leaf!

3. To “create water vapour” is impossible if you believe in conservation of mass (but maybe this is a quantum flower???).

4. Creating the water vapour in air isn’t what cools anything - the physical process of evaporation from the leaf to the air changes the energy balance and ‘consumes’ heat. And all plants do this, not just engineered ones (unless you count that they were all engineered by God!).