Living Land Mine Flags

A Danish company, Aresa Biodetection, has developed genetically modified flowers that change color when they grow over a land mine. Seems that the mines give off nitrogen dioxide gas over time, and when the plant's roots detect this, the petals change color. The company wants to distribute the Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale or mouse cress) in mine heavy areas of the third world. Arabidopsis thaliana is the first plant for which the complete genome has been sequenced.