These days, there are more unusual shining objects besides Rudolph’s red nose.
In order to create the glistening Pandora rainforest shown in the 2009 blockbuster science fiction movie Avatar, scientists have discovered at least two methods to make plants light in the dark.
One method involves covering plants with nanoparticles of light-producing enzymes, which, after only 10 to 15 seconds of exposure to sunshine or UV light, can make them glow for up to three hours. The end product is a luminous plant that can be recharged.
The other method involves introducing genes from light-emitting fungi, such as mushrooms, into a plant’s DNA, which results in the plant producing a continuous glow-in-the-dark reaction of its own.
They are more than just futuristic lab tests.
They are already selling glowing plants.
The largest controversy to date occurred earlier this year when Light Bio Inc., a firm based in Idaho, started selling genetically modified Firefly petunias that bloomed white and gave out a mild greenish-white glow in the dark, akin to the effect of moonlight.
The whole stock of 50,000 petunias sold out, despite the fact that they cost $29 each plus an additional $24 for shipping.
As one of the top 200 new inventions of the year, firefly petunias were featured on the cover of Time magazine’s Best Inventions edition last month.
Light Bio is selling three plants only online for $39.99 this coming season, plus $19.50 for shipping. Pre-ordering is currently in progress.
According to Dr. Keith Wood, co-founder of the company, glowing plants clearly pique consumers’ interest, and the company aims to grow into cut flowers and houseplants that generate this living light.
Wood brought up the concept of purchasing a bouquet of illuminating flowers for Mother’s Day in an interview with the Idaho Mountain Express. We’ll probably go into landscaping eventually. You can have a sparkling yard or shimmering bushes.
A Canadian startup calledGlow Plant Inc.is using the nanoparticle-coating approach to produce a new line of glowing air plants (Tillandsia) also available only online-direct from the company.
Its blue or greenTillandsia lonanthaplants sell for $25 each, its blue or greenTillandsia abditaplants go for $50 each, and an arrangement of six air plants was on sale recently for $151. But all of the product was marked as sold out as of last week.
A 15-second exposure to ultraviolet light (or sunlight) ignites a mesmerizing glow that lasts for up to three hours, claims the company, whose marketing tag line is, Making the world a little brighter, one plant at a time.
Another biotech startup from Toronto, Canada, aspires to enter the rapidly growing luminous plant market.
Glowleaf Inc.plans to start by offering genetically engineered glowing rock cress plants with eventual plans to expand into such species as roses, lilies, and trees.
Glowleaf founder and molecular biologist Keaun Amani talks of someday using the technology to replace street lights with glowing palm trees.
All of the plants available so far are a far cry from that, although they are markedly brighter than the first attempts at glowing plants a decade ago.
In 2014, a St. Louis biotech company called Bioglow sold what it billed the world s first self-glowing plant a flowering tobacco plant (Nicotiana) calledStarlight Avatarthat faintly glowed thanks to genes inserted from a glowing marine bacterium.
The first batch of those sold for hundreds of dollars each at auction, but the plants glowed only dimly, died after two or three months at best, and are no longer available.
An earlier 2013 effort byTaxa Biotechnologiesfailed before getting any glowing plants to market.
Obviously, working out the glowing details hasn t turned out to be as straightforward as producers first envisioned.
Scientific work with nature s glow dates to at least the 1880s when French physiologist Raphael Dubois isolated the process by grinding up glowing click beetles and mixing cold- and boiling-water solutions of them.
Although plants don t naturally glow, click beetles are just one of some 1,500 other organisms that do. These include plankton, sea snails, the Hawaiian bobtail squid, anglerfish, jellyfish, a few worms, assorted insects, fungi, and bacteria, and the poster child of glowers, the firefly or lightning bug.
Fireflies use their glow to attract mates. Fish use the trait to lure prey. The bobtail squid uses its glowing mucus to repel predators. So nature s purpose for glowing creatures isn t just to fascinate humans.
It took until the 1980s for scientists (including then University of California grad student Keith Wood) to figure out the key to the glow a process that uses the compound luciferin and an enzyme called luciferase to produce light energy.
Early attempts at creating glowing plants introduced luciferin- and luciferase-creating genes from marine bacteria and/or fireflies into flowering tobacco plants. The idea worked, but not for very long and not in a very bright way.
A breakthrough came in 2018 when an international team of scientists including Wood and Light Bio co-founder Dr. Karen Sarkisyan got markedly better results with genetics from a glowing mushroom.
The key turned out to be a molecule called caffeic acid that produces luciferin when acted on by four enzymes. Caffeic acid is not only present in glowing mushrooms (and other fungi) but in the cell walls of all plants, giving it a sort of glowing link between the two worlds.
Explains Wood: It turned out, just by dumb luck, that the chemical mechanism for making light in these mushrooms overlaps or is very similar to the major pathway in plants for making cell walls. And that was the ticket.
Light Bio recently partnered with the Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks biotech firm to develop an array of brighter, longer-glowing plants, including roses, mums, vines, and other landscape plants.
Producing plants that glow in different colors is also on the horizon.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture OK d the sale of Light Bio s debut genetically engineered Firefly petunia in the fall of 2023.
That came just a few months after the green light for the first GMO (genetically modified organism) vegetable being marketed directly to home gardeners, thePurple Tomato.
MIT engineers embedded green nanoparticles in plant leaves and developed a way to make them emit light when charged by an LED.Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Meanwhile, others are focusing on the plant nanobionics approach that s been developed largely at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.
This involves packaging luciferin-producing enzymes from fireflies in nanoparticles, then infusing the solution in the leaf pores (stomata) of plants.
That process also involves using a compound called strontium aluminate to create light-transferring phosphors that both absorb and give off light energy the key to a glowing plant s rechargeability.
We wanted to create a light-emitting plant with particles that will absorb light, store some of it, and emit it gradually, explains Dr. Michael Strano, an MIT chemical engineering professor working on the project. This is a big step toward plant-based lighting.
Avatar s Pandora might still be a long way off, but in the meantime, Wood says there s nothing wrong with plants that bring nothing more than sheer enjoyment.
People don t think about science as just bringing joy to our lives, he told National Public Radio in an April interview. We thought we could do something really special here. We could create a kind of decorative plant that was really just enjoyment, just bringing a kind of magic into our lives.
Gardening with George Weigel
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!