Why not leave the night sky dark? It's like we have this 30,000 year old phobia that we can't ditch... there are no more tigers lurking in the darkness.
Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
21–30 of 62 posts
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its highly unlikely that these plants would ever succeed as an invasive species because the energy consumption required to glow puts the plant at a massive disadvantage. I ordered something similar from a kickstarter a few months ago: http://www.glowingplant.com/ They say that within a couple generations, the glowing feature quickly disappears due to natural selection.
Actually quite a few scientists tried to stop that kickstarter because of the dangers it could prove to the ecosystem: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2013/jun/0...
That article seems mostly seems worried about future projects. And I'm not sure what scientists you're talking about. Is it this line:
> 116 organizations have called for a moratorium on any release of synthetic organisms. The UN convention on Biological Diversity has urged countries to exercise precaution in any release of synthetic organisms to the environment.
Well if I click on the link I find a very interesting sentence:
> With synthetic biology, instead of swapping existing genes from one species to another (as in “ traditional” genetic engineering), scientists can write entirely new genetic code on a computer, "print" it out and then insert it into living organisms — or even try to create life from scratch.
Swapping a couple genes from one species to another sounds exactly like what they typically do to make a species glow.
And yet after that sentence they seem to change their definition of synthetic biology to include both those categories.
It tastes like doublespeak to me. "Companies are doing not just X but Y! Ban Y! (also we defined Y to include X)"
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#23Luciferin isn't what makes jellyfish glow, that's GFP. GFP, at least, requires a specific light input to cause the glow (UV at a particular wavelength depending on the molecule). I don't know about Luciferin, though.
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#24Luciferin isn't what makes jellyfish glow, that's GFP. GFP, at least, requires a specific light input to cause the glow (UV at a particular wavelength depending on the molecule). I don't know about Luciferin, though.
luciferin makes the jellyfish glow, by creating the photon that gets transferred to (and illuminates) the GFP.
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#25it seems to me that if this can be pulled off, it would be Nobel worthy. I mean, it would not be less cool than a blue LED, would it?
LEDs are vastly brighter than bioluminescence. And engineered bioluminescence isn't actually new. It's one of the easiest things to engineer, and it's one of the first things the gene tech people did when they started playing with this stuff.
This 'designer/architect' seems more like a self-promoter.
There's an entire class of 'designers' who see themselves as gifted idea people, but in fact they lack the scientific literacy to realise why some ideas aren't good engineering.
Real designers do clever stuff that works in reality, not just as a concept in an illustration.
While I'm all for high quality bioengineering as a future trend, I suspect it's quite a bit harder to replace current technology with it than this 'designer' thinks.
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#26FAQ on a similar glowing plant effort:
http://bioglowtech.com/FAQ.html
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#27Serious question - what happens in fall when the leaves fall off the trees? Also, with a simple light bulb, or even lamp post, it can be replaced quickly and cheaply. (OK, maybe not cheaply for the whole lamp post, but relatively easily.) But planting a tree takes years for the tree to grow. This doesn't seem realistic to me, though it does seem really cool. Also, how much light do they give off? All of the images on…
These would look wicked cool down the sides of my driveway - it doesn't need to light the whole thing, but it acts as landing lights... makes it light enough to tell where you're going at least, even if you couldn't read a book by them.
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#28Serious question - what happens in fall when the leaves fall off the trees? Also, with a simple light bulb, or even lamp post, it can be replaced quickly and cheaply. (OK, maybe not cheaply for the whole lamp post, but relatively easily.) But planting a tree takes years for the tree to grow. This doesn't seem realistic to me, though it does seem really cool. Also, how much light do they give off? All of the images on…
Our world will finally look like the Matrix with green glow coming from the trees everywhere.
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#29Why not leave the night sky dark? It's like we have this 30,000 year old phobia that we can't ditch... there are no more tigers lurking in the darkness.
Seriously, I'd much rather have night vision prosthetic eyes and not make trees into light sources.
Re: Bioluminescent trees as an alternative to electric lighting
#30Luciferin isn't what makes jellyfish glow, that's GFP. GFP, at least, requires a specific light input to cause the glow (UV at a particular wavelength depending on the molecule). I don't know about Luciferin, though.
Luciferin is converted to a reactive intermediate by the enzyme luciferase in a reaction that uses ATP (produced by mitochondria), this intermediate reacts with O2 to produce light.