News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Engineers create plants that glow by jaytaylor on Thursday December 28, 2017 @05:11PM (#16025396)
I like this vision, it's terrific!

If the duration of the effect is only hours and then it runs out like rave glow sticks, is this tech still in a fetal stage? To fulfill the vision, an even more radical and novel approach is necessary to enable a "lightbulb plant" to be self-sustaining and not burn out for years.

Re:Engineers create plants that glow by toufka on Thursday December 28, 2017 @05:18PM (#16025468)
It is an enzymatic reaction - and comes from fireflies, or similar biological effects. So there's no reason that - at some point - the effect cannot be entirely generated in vivo rather than upon addition of particular ingredients. The hard part is getting enough light. Enough light to read by is a lot of energy for otherwise very efficient biological processes. Once engineered though, as long as the plant is energetically productive (alive and well-fed), the glow should persist. The glow could persist as long as the plant is alive.

The paper:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04369