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The photo of the petunias in the article remind me of photos people take of their various tritium devices. It's always a long exposure to make it much more impr

The photo of the petunias in the article remind me of photos people take of their various tritium devices. It's always a long exposure to make it much more impressive than it actually is.

dylan604 3y ago
They have a video of it with people moving. I only saw it scrolling by without watching the video closely though. It does have the feel of some black light being used was my first thought.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Well it’s clear in this video that there is some mild foreground light. But also the shot with the laptop is interesting because laptop screens usually don’t go super dim, relatively speaking, and you’re still seeing a clear exposure of the plant glow and the laptop screen. They’re quite a bit dimmer than the laptop screen but if they were extremely dim the laptop screen would be noticeably overexposed. That said I can’t get a clear read on it due to the foreground light. https://youtu.be/5SfkWdkoKxM?si=X92failgjPMzIeFY https://youtu.be/5SfkWdkoKxM?si=X92failgjPMzIeFY
Smoosh 3y ago
It's the same with ocean bioluminescence. Your eyes adapt to the dark and see it better than it looks in a normal photograph, but most photographs are "enhanced" as you say with long exposure times and/or increased colour saturation.
saiya-jin 3y ago
Well they themselves mention up to 100x enhancement in original bio luminescence. When you start with something absolutely invisible to naked eye in pitch black even after some time, 100x ain't that much.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  A nit, but: > something absolutely invisible to naked eye in pitch black even after some time Is it invisible, though? If it were, how would we even find out it's bioluminescent? And then, IIRC visual receptors in our eyes are sensitive to single-photon events. It takes a bit more for us to consciously perceive light, but not that much more[0]. Also, 100x enhancement is 20dB increase, which isn't little. -- [0] - https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon.html https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon....
pvaldes 3y ago
The main problem is how to stop genetic contamination from pollen. Petunias are from tomato family. As far as I know, there is not cross pollination between both species, but maybe with the next species tried it could be. Or jump to native Solanaceae. Nobody wants this in their salad. If there is something that terrifies me more than the capacity of Solanaceae to make sophisticated, evil poisons is to weaponize them even more with the superpower of fungus genes. The new pollen allergies could rank between "nothing to see here" and "next terrible problem".
- malfist 3y ago
  That is not how plant breeding works. You cannot cross a tomato and a petunia.
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    > You cannot cross a tomato and a petunia. As I said previously. But if you use this product in an area with native Petunioideae (like for example USA), any decent consultant would suggest assure that this pollen will not contaminate wild populations because you are messing with 1) Genetics 2) conservation of nature 3) Pollinators, and there are a few bobby traps lying in your path We could discover too late that the same gen codify for light and a 'surprise cadeau' that will accumulate toxins in the plant for example. Or that this changes the structure of pollinators in an undesirable way because they promote the contaminated genetics.
- Loughla 3y ago
  That isn't how genetics and plant breeding works? As an example; Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and orangutans are all in the same family. More likely would be that these cross-pollinate with other petunias in someone's garden. Which is almost entirely not a problem, unless there is something about these genes that cause the plants to just be massively invasive and spreading. But they're annuals with seeds that do not travel well, so mitigation of that issue should be relatively simple, even if it does exist.
Reubachi 3y ago
This is a bit misleading. I have several photos of my >2 years old tritium/phosphate activated accessories taken in twilight hours, or just after that, in which the luminescence is very clearly separate from any background light.(and directly analagous to the brightness level in real life. ) Perhaps you've seen in real life some that are much older/decayed? I have a bunch that I need to replace in sights/flashights due to this reason, they're just much dimmer than originally advertised. (anyways, these flowers aren't phosphorous tubes excited by radioactive decay/emission so there's no way they will be as full spectrum'd/constant as the tritium vials I just described.)

The photo of the petunias in the article remind me of photos people take of their various tritium devices. It's always a long exposure to make it much more impressive than it actually is.

dylan604 3y ago

They have a video of it with people moving. I only saw it scrolling by without watching the video closely though. It does have the feel of some black light being used was my first thought.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Well it’s clear in this video that there is some mild foreground light. But also the shot with the laptop is interesting because laptop screens usually don’t go super dim, relatively speaking, and you’re still seeing a clear exposure of the plant glow and the laptop screen. They’re quite a bit dimmer than the laptop screen but if they were extremely dim the laptop screen would be noticeably overexposed. That said I can’t get a clear read on it due to the foreground light. https://youtu.be/5SfkWdkoKxM?si=X92failgjPMzIeFY https://youtu.be/5SfkWdkoKxM?si=X92failgjPMzIeFY

Smoosh 3y ago

It's the same with ocean bioluminescence. Your eyes adapt to the dark and see it better than it looks in a normal photograph, but most photographs are "enhanced" as you say with long exposure times and/or increased colour saturation.

saiya-jin 3y ago

Well they themselves mention up to 100x enhancement in original bio luminescence. When you start with something absolutely invisible to naked eye in pitch black even after some time, 100x ain't that much.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
A nit, but: > something absolutely invisible to naked eye in pitch black even after some time Is it invisible, though? If it were, how would we even find out it's bioluminescent? And then, IIRC visual receptors in our eyes are sensitive to single-photon events. It takes a bit more for us to consciously perceive light, but not that much more[0]. Also, 100x enhancement is 20dB increase, which isn't little. -- [0] - https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon.html https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon....

pvaldes 3y ago

The main problem is how to stop genetic contamination from pollen. Petunias are from tomato family. As far as I know, there is not cross pollination between both species, but maybe with the next species tried it could be. Or jump to native Solanaceae. Nobody wants this in their salad. If there is something that terrifies me more than the capacity of Solanaceae to make sophisticated, evil poisons is to weaponize them even more with the superpower of fungus genes. The new pollen allergies could rank between "nothing to see here" and "next terrible problem".

malfist 3y ago
That is not how plant breeding works. You cannot cross a tomato and a petunia.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  > You cannot cross a tomato and a petunia. As I said previously. But if you use this product in an area with native Petunioideae (like for example USA), any decent consultant would suggest assure that this pollen will not contaminate wild populations because you are messing with 1) Genetics 2) conservation of nature 3) Pollinators, and there are a few bobby traps lying in your path We could discover too late that the same gen codify for light and a 'surprise cadeau' that will accumulate toxins in the plant for example. Or that this changes the structure of pollinators in an undesirable way because they promote the contaminated genetics.
Loughla 3y ago
That isn't how genetics and plant breeding works? As an example; Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and orangutans are all in the same family. More likely would be that these cross-pollinate with other petunias in someone's garden. Which is almost entirely not a problem, unless there is something about these genes that cause the plants to just be massively invasive and spreading. But they're annuals with seeds that do not travel well, so mitigation of that issue should be relatively simple, even if it does exist.

Reubachi 3y ago

This is a bit misleading. I have several photos of my >2 years old tritium/phosphate activated accessories taken in twilight hours, or just after that, in which the luminescence is very clearly separate from any background light.(and directly analagous to the brightness level in real life. ) Perhaps you've seen in real life some that are much older/decayed? I have a bunch that I need to replace in sights/flashights due to this reason, they're just much dimmer than originally advertised. (anyways, these flowers aren't phosphorous tubes excited by radioactive decay/emission so there's no way they will be as full spectrum'd/constant as the tritium vials I just described.)