The research (first published in 2016) is credited to a list of 9 scientists with names that conjure up a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, from PingWei Liu to Juan P. Giraldo.
The scientists are all affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge (MA) with a secondary affiliation (for one scientists) with the University of California at Riverside.
So, it's a safe bet that there's not a taint of Liberalism or anything else that MEM doesn't like in the general cultural and political
ambience surrounding this research.
"Nitroaromatic detection and infrared communication from wild-type plants using plant nanobionics"Min Hao Wong et al for Nature Materials; October 31, 2016.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat4771.epdf