"An improved pathway for autonomous bioluminescence imaging in eukaryotes" (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-023-02152-y :

> Abstract: The discovery of the bioluminescence pathway in the fungus Neonothopanus nambi enabled engineering of eukaryotes with self-sustained luminescence. However, the brightness of luminescence in heterologous hosts was limited by performance of the native fungal enzymes. Here we report optimized versions of the pathway that enhance bioluminescence by one to two orders of magnitude in plant, fungal and mammalian hosts, and enable longitudinal video-rate imaging.

> Can I propagate or breed the Firefly Petunias? Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use.

Good luck to them with that. If these plants in real life are anything like in the videos, they will be grown and sold world wide in massive amounts and nobody will give a hoot about some patent.

It'll be interesting to see if/how they try to lock it down genetically, I think it's possible to make the plants unable to produce seeds, but propagation is trickier. Monsanto might have some tips for them.

@GP: Yes, but what does the law say about transhuman rights? At what point has one added/removed things that they’re no longer a natural person?

Some of the best tomato seed varieties are often patented, e.g. F1 hybrid sungold tomatoes (though reproducing those is also annoying because they are a hybrid and people generally want seeds.) There are groups[0] which try to make varieties as heirlooms (i.e. collect-and-plant) seeds that are copyleft licensed[0].

For another interesting example of recent plant developments, Norfolk Plant Sciences developed purple tomatoes and recently began selling seeds of them. Unlike other purple tomatoes (of which there are only a few) these have purple meat inside, incorporating a gene from snapdragon flowers, which also keeps the tomatoes good longer. They are patented, $20 for just 10 seeds.

Another small company, Baker Creek’s “Purple Galaxy” tomatoes, has been suspected of re-selling Norfolk's purple tomato seeds and recently stopped selling them due to 'low stock' (suspected cease-and-desist) - as a minor controversy in the gardening community last week, though allegedly Baker's Creek is a white nationalist group so YMMV on whose side you want to take there.

Anyway, plants are fun!

[0] https://osseeds.org/

I'm familiar with this, but it sounds like you might know more details. Do you really mean "re-selling"? I'd presumed that the accusation was that they were planning to sell a cross-bred plant that involved genes from the patented variety, but my search attempts on the tomato forums weren't very successful. Is there a better "inside scoop" story out there to be found or is it all guesswork at this point?

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/1akcwog/this_loo...

Is NHP's Purple Tomato related to the "Purple Galaxy"?

We have received many questions about the purple tomato marketed by Baker Creek as “Purple Galaxy” in their 2024 catalogs. We understand from Baker Creek that they will not be selling seeds of this variety. Given its remarkable similarity to our purple tomato, we prompted Baker Creek to investigate their claim that Purple Galaxy was non-GMO. We are told that laboratory testing determined that it is, in fact, bioengineered (GMO). This result supports the fact that the only reported way to produce a purple-fleshed tomato rich in anthocyanin antioxidants is with Norfolk’s patented technology. We appreciate that Baker Creek tested their material, and after discovering it was a GMO, removed it from their website.

https://www.norfolkhealthyproduce.com/faqs

Also, someone in your linked thread also confirms 1) they are not F1, 2) will breed true, and 3) personal and community seed saving is allowed. I already got my packet in the mail---now just need to wait for all the snow to melt!

However, the one thing I really don’t like is this:

>Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use.

I think this is wrong, it should not be possible to patent life forms.

This is "to promote progress in the science and useful art of agronomy".

Not defending it, just stating what the law is.

An example of a bad patent would be a patent on a process anybody trying to solve the problem would come up with - that's a needless restraint on trade - and an example of a truly horrible patent would be one on a human gene. Those existed until 2013, when the supreme court finally ruled against them.

The glowing petunias on the other hand were a proper invention, inserting a working, novel biochemical pathway into a plant is quite hard.

All apple cultivars are like that.

https://theconversation.com/how-a-few-good-apples-spawned-to...

Plant a cutting in the neighbor's yard.

Neighbor goes to jail.

Profit!

Consider that if they couldn’t protect their work, they never would have invested the money into making these and offering them for sale to begin with.

I understand why some might find it unpleasant, but the fact that these exist at all is a testament to why such protections are available.

I don’t understand what you’re trying to argue, but the patent laws aren’t designed to patent generic, pre-existing plants like generic watermelon.

This is not a natural plant though.

That's a massive assumption. Plenty of other plants are sold every single day that aren't patented. There's zero reason to assume that they couldn't make a very nice profit on these plants without a patent. Just like every single florist in the country does.

Edit: it also seems that nontrivial engineering work was required to improve bioluminescence. It was not as simple as straightforwardly splicing in a few genes from a mushroom.

https://www.flowerpatchfarmhouse.com/grow-petunias-from-cutt...

I'm sure they will go after stores that sell them but for the home grower, buy one and clone away.

Apparently plants have been patented already for nearly a century, I didn't know that: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2023/august/expanded-in...

But yes, its controversial, and for good reason. But so is most of IP law to some degree.

If you count plant patents as patents, then almost all commercially used asexually propagated plant cultivars are patented.

https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/apply/plant-patent

There's a great critique of the lack of scientific rigour in Paolo Bacigalupi's novel, well worth a read if you like poor science being excoriated:

https://www.nyrsf.com/2015/10/eric-schaller-the-problem-with...

Is it perfect? No, but I enjoyed the novel quite a bit.

Certainly the physics in the couple books of his I read was interesting but the writing left a lot to be desired.

I revisited the first one 20-ish years later in an attempt to get my partner interested. I only made it a few chapters before I decided to abandon the attempt. There are some really good parts (the science stuff), but the way the human characters' interactions were described I just could not get past.

Side note: very interesting writing process for the Martian, as I remember it, he developed it chapter by chapter with his readers who would critique it on his blog. Later books were not as good (after he was famous) but project Hail Mary was a turn around.

NB I really like The Martian (and like SF in general).

As for recommendations, I'd say loads of the books by Arthur C. Clarke. Try "A fall of moondust".

If I owned a farm and needed a ratter, I'd likely feel different.

That said I can’t get a clear read on it due to the foreground light.

https://youtu.be/5SfkWdkoKxM?si=X92failgjPMzIeFY

> 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....

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".

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.

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.

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.)

Yes, yes, they can be propagated, but that's going to take a few plants if I'm to have enough to have more than a few odd glowing plants here and there.

Either way, this is super cool.

> The Firefly Petunia is shipped as a small plant rooted in a 4” pot. As flowers tend to suffer in shipment, the petunia will arrive with developing buds. It may contain a few newly opened flowers. With good growing conditions, it will quickly attain about 8 to 10 inches in size with abundant white flowers.

Example of propagating cuttings: https://youtu.be/eK5Ygp5RHTo

Basically, Create a fresh wound, hit it with some hormones, put it in some seed starting gardening mix, add some water, and then cover/protect from direct harsh sun so the clone doesn't lose water faster than it can take it up.

You can even propagate from the leaves: https://youtu.be/4_gsOwWQ6Pw

Do be aware that petunias do NOT like temps under 50 degrees, and freezing will generally wipe them out.

Tulips are annuals, so they only are expected to grow one season. You often order the bulbs in summer and they're delivered in fall, and then planted in early winter before the ground gets too cold. They're often less than a dollar per bulb, but if you've ever seen a nice arrangement, hundreds of tulips is not all that much.

The first year my wife told me she was spending ~$300 on tulips I thought she was crazy. That spring when I saw what they looked like I okayed doubling the order for the next year. It's really a delight to see spring announced by your yard exploding in beautiful flowers.

really looking forward to spring to see them all come up again.

We love us some volunteers

To most, they are simply the same green and white plants, but to some, they are quite the obsession.

[1] https://www.gardensillustrated.com/news/snowdrop-bulb-sells-...

Can I propagate or breed the Firefly Petunias? Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use.

Propagation IS permitted as long as it's for personal use so your scenario is fine. Selling a propagated plant to your neighbor (or anyone else) violates the law.

How do you come to this conclusion from the FAQ answer above?

Patent protection is soley for protection from commercial use by non patent holders. This is why they put in the last line.

Patent protection does not stop me from building an equivalent of any item protected by patent. I cannot sell it commercially.

Legally it does, at least in the United States. That said, I doubt this company will search your backyard in the middle of the night to make sure you don't have more glowing petunias than you ordered from their website.

Yeah, that's my impression of patent laws, too. It's not some weird open source license, where you are only prohibited from commercial use. I remember advocates of patents telling me how it's better than keeping inventions secret, but I think in practice, there really isn't much of a difference... The whole thing needs an overhaul.

> That said, I doubt this company will search your backyard in the middle of the night to make sure you don't have more glowing petunias than you ordered from their website.

You read this take all over the thread, but I really think we shouldn't argue like that, when discussing law. Thing is, if the company really wanted to, they could cause legal trouble, which means you are vulnerable to them - which shifts the power balance between civil entities. Somewhat similar to e.g. drug criminalization. You likely get away with minor possession, but if the police officer doesn't like you, you may suffer severe consequences still. For example, if you were to publicly criticize the company for whatever reason, you may have to make sure to not (ever) post pictures of your glowing garden publicly.

These legal vulnerabilities add up and may in total change your behavior subtly so people in power do not not like you. If you want to form a union, protest against the police, are black/gay/..., or want to publish dirt on your local politician, you better make sure you didn't take too many cuttings from glowing petunias somewhere.

I'm assuming these things are seedless, so they won't start popping up and spreading naturally?

So I opened the dev tools and found the HTTP response of 504. Oh! Their site is down, it's not just me.

Then I looked at the response headers.

    Server: Caddy

(Of course, after my initial heart-sink, I realized that this means their backend is down, and Caddy is serving up the response just fine. Phew.)

Just make sure to trim away anything that’ll track in bugs / disease, and keep them in a temperate climate.

This looks pretty cool, let's see how it goes!

Of course there are dangers in everything, but fiddling with the code of life probably seems more scary than it actually is.

- first of all, the continuous threat to Eco-systems from invasive species constantly spread around the globe by carelessness.

- one especially bad example is the breeding of pets which are basically sick by design. A lot of dog races are a prototypical example, but also cats and especially many fish breeds.

So yes, genetically modified plants are a bit frivolous, but one should push more to fight against the things listed above, happening so routinely.

That's like saying, stab him because is already shot.

The straw that broke the camel's back.

https://light.bio/

As long nobody gives a fuck which flowers they buy this year to further kill the local ecosystem I am all for limitations.

Source: I live rather remote in the Alps and nature here is nothing like it was 100 years ago. Which is not necessarily bad, except most 'pests' seem to be popular garden plants.

While imagining glowing forests is cool, in the fight against sweeping diseases, diversity is king.

It's daft to apply human politics to plants.

Not automatically. Only the ones who survive in the wild and spread (by definition).

It was just a joke.

> Non-native plants are the ones that out-compete the local species.

Usually, but not always. Some non-native species may increase diversity and some native species can turn invasive when the environment changes (usually due to the global warming).

> Free Shipping available for orders from $263.01

You bastards. Fine, one more.

"Why is my cat glowing?" sounds inevitable for my household

If we bred it into domestic dogs it would make nighttime walkies safer and midnight trips to the bathroom less stumblesome.

> The Firefly Petunia is shipped as a small plant rooted in a 4” pot. As flowers tend to suffer in shipment, the petunia will arrive with developing buds. It may contain a few newly opened flowers. With good growing conditions, it will quickly attain about 8 to 10 inches in size with abundant white flowers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5rAOitj5_8

"Whoah! What was that? Uhh...fire squirrel"

Lol, what a disgrace. Bees, are you listening? The man said no!

I really want to pirate this plant now. Feels like an obligation to the general aesthetics of life and the wider how of things.

I wonder what would be the color of this flowers, probably pure white, so by day would be indistinguishable from the other.

I think, legally, all propagation is forbidden, still. You'd become vulnerable, still.

Again, what a disgrace to claim existential control over life itself. They should be fucking ashamed. And we as people should not legitimize these wicked dreams.

Just don't buy the product. End of the problem.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-pla...