12 ms·
I only have a layman's understanding of bioluminescence, but I was under the impression that it: 1) Made the plants extremely frail and prone to die at the dro
by shadowmint 13y ago
I only have a layman's understanding of bioluminescence, but I was under the impression that it:
1) Made the plants extremely frail and prone to die at the drop of a hat
2) Generated extremely faint light levels, to the point where someone specialized equipment is needed to see it.
3) Was usually generated by a short-burst chemical reaction in the organism that was triggered somehow (eg. shake, tap, etc.) and had a rather short chemical reaction life, after which it faded.
4) The organism required significant time and nutrients to regenerate the chemical 'glow cell'.
So, mark me as a skeptic this will produce anything particularly useful, but I like the idea.
I'd be rather interested to see any links to science papers on things that make any of (1)-(4) no longer an issue.
- technotony 13y agoHere's the paper: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0015461 http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...
- shadowmint 13y ago> Indeed, when the fully grown, homoplastomic LUX-TrnI/TrnA plants were placed in a dark room, their glow was clearly seen after about 5–10 min of eye adjustment to darkness. bright, I see, just like I remember. Still, looks promising~
- technotony 13y agoThis was a proof of concept to show that the plant would stay alive and could express these molecules. The project posted an update to discuss how to improve the light output: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit/posts/468578 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plan... Four things: 1. Codon optimization 2. Promotor selection 3. Metabolic engineering 4. Gene Copy numbers