Thursday, May 23, 2013

Glowing Plant as a Sustainable Light Source

Linda Grimwade


I just read a fascinating article about a new glowing plant project that I want to share with Master Gardeners.
“A glowing plant that could provide a sustainable light source”

In the 1980s scientists made a tobacco plant glow





Would you believe it?  “trees could act as street lights.
The research team, led by synthetic biologist Omri Amirav-Drory and plant scientist Kyle Taylor, aims to transplant a fluorescent gene into a small plant calledArabidopsis, a member of the mustard family.

The team has chosen this plant as it is easy to experiment with and carries minimal risk for spreading into the wild.

However, it hopes that the same process will work for a rose, which it considers to be more commercially appealing.

The team will work with luciferase, an enzyme common in fireflies as well as some glowing fungi and bacteria.”


1 comment: