Priti Saxena

Everyone has a kettle in their kitchen, but few brew herbs in water that has just had an electric discharge passed through it. That's exactly what researchers did with neem and tulsi leaves — plants used for centuries in India as natural remedies. First, they 'activated' the water with plasma: they sent a glowing electric discharge through it, like a miniature lightning bolt.

A wheat seed is like a traveler sleeping in cold soil: to wake up, it needs a warm rain. Scientists from India have found a way to wake it without chemicals — using cold plasma, the same stuff that glows in neon lamps. Plasma is a gas in which some atoms have lost electrons. It slightly scratches the seed coat, letting water penetrate faster.