-Carbon-11 it emits radiation that can be detected non-invasively in living organisms, so the plants can be studied in their fully functional condition. The radioactivity lasts for only a short time - it has a half-life of about 20 minutes. So the plants are not radioactive after an experiment.

-Scientist labeled plants with carbon-11 to discover new aspects of the way plants respond to stress around the environment.

-Scientists also tracked the movement of radiolabeled sugar (C-11), produced by plants as a product of photosynthesis.