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Comment on Bioluminescent petunias at home

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I have these! They really do glow in the dark — but it’s much easier to capture in a photo than see with the naked eye. (Dim) “green tinted moonlight” is a good description of it. Or imagine a barely charged glow in the dark object. Still, cool technology!

Nice remark, and expected. I did some research into this some time ago. We were looking into "bio-light" using luciferase (the mentioned firefly protein). The thing is that that protein emits one photon for 1 ATP (fuel) molecule. The amount of ATP needed to make a 200 lumen plant, is kilograms per day. Completely unfeasible.

We concluded that indeed "green tinted moonlight" was about feasible, maybe not even. Seems like now they have a better way, too bad there are no details.

Given the human eye's sensitivity, I think it's a good first step.

In a dark room with fully-acclimated eyes, they definitely glow.

Mine are still perking up from shipping, so we'll see what output they finally achieve, but people forget you can see in a room lit by a single LED. It doesn't take much to be a night-light.

They published their strategy. It utilizes the bioluminescence pathway from a fungus that uses caffeic acid to generate light.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7610436/

An astronomy trick is to look away slightly from them since the fovea has no rods your slightly peripheral vision is more light sensitive.

Same here! I agree with your description, but my wife and I still absolutely love it. It’s brighter when your eyes have adjusted to the dark for a while too.

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