
Engineers create plants that glow - jbuzbee
http://news.mit.edu/2017/engineers-create-nanobionic-plants-that-glow-1213
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degenerate
For anyone clicking to see what they look like: the first picture, of the tree
in a field, is not glowing and not from MIT. It's a stock photo of a very
bright LED behind a tree.

To see the glowing plant, scroll down a bit to the other 2 pictures, or watch
the source MIT video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp-
vqd8zJM4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp-vqd8zJM4)

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yks
The kickstarter project doing the same but via genetic engineering ran out of
money earlier this year
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/04/whatever...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/04/whatever-
happened-to-the-glowing-plant-kickstarter/523551/)

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LaundroMat
My thoughts exactly - I backed them (and I don't regret it, they were a
sincere bunch) hoping one day this would come true.

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illegalsmile
I too backed and after all these years figured their updates, videos and data
were worth my backing.

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ipsum2
This research isn't particularly interesting (imo). The plant doesn't produce
any glowing bits (luciferase, luciferin) by itself, but is injected using high
pressure. Once the plants lose their glow, they'll need to be injected again.

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wybiral
Yeah. I just invented a more cost effective method with similar results

/me whips out can of glow-in-the-dark spray paint...

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slavik81
Too late. A few months after that kickstarter launched, I saw some glow-in-
the-dark plants at Walmart. I figured someone else had beat them to the punch.
Only once I got home did I realize they had been painted.

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jaytaylor
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_.

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toufka
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](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04369)

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adrusi
So street lights that shed their leaves in the winter? Or that die during a
drought? Relying on the variable metabolism of trees to prevent car crashes
doesn't sound like a good idea. Something like large columnar tanks filled
with cyanobacteria or algae, that can be recolonized quickly when thrown out
of equilibrium, would make more sense.

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soperj
Or evergreen trees that don't shed their leaves, or die during a drought
because they're already there, and you water them anyway. Do street lamps
really prevent car crashes?

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vnchr
In my experience, being able to see the road and other cars at distances
beyond the reach of my headlights reduces my likelihood of crashing my car.

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fold_left
Linking in that Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde was looking at this back in
2014: [https://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/24/movie-sxsw-daan-
roosegarde...](https://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/24/movie-sxsw-daan-roosegarde-
glow-in-dark-trees/)

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eggy
Interesting link. Avatar the movie (2009) had glowing vegetation on Pandora,
and I am sure I could find earlier references. IIRC the algae glows in the
movie The Red Planet (2000) too.

Bioluminescence is very neat, however, I worry about runaway light pollution
no matter the source. I used to like to look at the stars from my rooftop in
Brooklyn back in the 70s with my small refractor telescope. Now the amount of
light masks the sky. My old eyes are blinded when driving at night by the pure
white, intense headlights on the newer cars even if I look aside to avoid
them.

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dekhn
If you want, you can already see bioluminescence walking outside at night on a
trail. Many things light up, if you allow dark adaptation and look away, you
will easily see that the entire trail is "glowing".

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rectangletangle
Interesting, reminds me of the reporter gene technique often used in genetic
engineering. Genes that express green fluorescent protein (GFP), or other
similar proteins, can be used as a "genetic logging." Basically if the tissue
is glowing, you know your changes took.

I'm curious how much extra metabolic stress a particularly bright plant has to
bear? Through genetic manipulation, and artificial selection, you could
pressure the organism toward brightness. But I could imagine quickly running
into some hard limit, where the plant's metabolism is taxed too heavily, and
it can't survive.

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21
No mention of how much of the plant energy budget this uses.

If this uses let's say 20%, what are the implications for the plant? Will it
be less adapted to the environment and die more easily?

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adrianratnapala
I like it. I especially like that Alastair Reynolds anticipated it in
"Revenger".

Presumably the idea here is to store energy during the day and then return
some of it during the night via glow-worm biochemistry. In "Revenger" they
actually use growing plants as a kind of electric lighting -- presumably via a
kind of reverse photosynthesis converting conduction-band electrons to light.

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aalleavitch
I read this initially as “engineers create plants that grow” and I was about
to be like “classic engineers!”

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davidw
Free idea for someone in a state where MJ is legal: glow in the dark pot.
"Woooaaaahhh".

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JoeAltmaier
Better: glow-in-the-dark smoke!

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.thespaceacademy.org/2017/12/mit-just-created-
livi...](http://www.thespaceacademy.org/2017/12/mit-just-created-living-
plants-
that.html?m=1&utm_content=buffer54f50&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&utm_source=listrak-
roundup&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=http%3a%2f%2fwww.thespaceacademy.org%2f2017%2f12%2fmit-
just-created-living-plants-
that.html%3fm%3d1%26utm_content%3dbuffer54f50%26utm_medium%3dsocial%26utm_source%3dfacebook.com%26utm_campaign%3dbuffer&utm_campaign=roundup20171228).

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659087
> MIT Just Created Living Plants That Glow Like a Lamp

The implications of this clickbait title don't match the reality of what MIT
achieved at all.

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dang
A comment like this can be helpful when it suggests an accurate, neutral title
that would serve instead. It's best if the suggested titles use representative
language from the original article—there's almost always a descriptive phrase
in there that says what's actually meant.

Edit: in this case we changed the URL instead, and the title with it.

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ringaroundthetx
Luciferase, luciferin, and Co-Enzyme A

Who named these? I feel like this field needs “meaningful variable names” just
like anyone educated in Computer Science is taught.

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toufka
Lucifer means 'light-bringing' in Latin, as in the morning star, as in Venus.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer)

