Spinach plants can now detect explosives, send email alert to researchers One of the lead researchers, Professor Micheal Strano said this experiment is a "novel demonstration" of how we have managed to overcome the plant-human communication barrier. advertisement UPDATED: February 3, 2021 05:20 IST [REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE] File photo of farmers in Maharashtra's Karad plucking spinach leaves (Photo Credits: PTI) Using nanotechnology, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US have managed to engineer spinach plants capable of sending emails. The applications of this technology that falls under the category of 'plant nanobionics' range from detection of explosives for sampling groundwater.