Glow-in-the-dark houseplants shine in rainbow of colours
54 pointsby bookofjoe91 days ago54 comments(www.nature.com)
Comments (9)
anfractuosity•88 days ago
https://light.bio/ looks more interesting than injecting glowing substances
Heh, I just came across this though "Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use."
Edit: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11913033B2 curious if anyone has come across DIY versions?
Did also find - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glowing_Plant_project
ceejayoz•88 days ago
I have some of these, they're quite neat. Needs to be in proper darkness - we moved ours into our bedroom as a nightlight.
The company has made statements indicating propagating for personal use is OK.
MarcelOlsz•88 days ago
I'm buying some and giving the seeds to as many neighbours as possible for free. Imagine patenting a fucking plant.
ceejayoz•88 days ago
Imagine spending years and millions of dollars doing the R&D on said plant, and finding mass-cultured clones for sale in Home Depot the next year undercutting your investment.
It's a novel invention and no one needs glowing petunias. I think that's pretty much the ideal scenario for a patent.
Enginerrrd•88 days ago
If your business model relies on fairly draconian control over the liberties of individuals in ways that defy normal human social norms (like propagating and giving away plants), then its probably not the right business model. Not even just from a moral standpoint; its a losing business model.
Also, exerting control over a commercial cloning effort and trying to control personal use and propagation are totally different scenarios.
The reality is their business is just not going to be substantially hurt by personal propagation and use.
ceejayoz•88 days ago
Again, the business recognizes this difference. They openly permit personal propagation. They just don't want you starting a for-profit glowing plants nursery with your clones.
squigz•87 days ago
Does "personal propagation" include giving them to friends and family?
ceejayoz•87 days ago
Legally? Probably not.
Practically? Unless you gift it to a thousand "friends", they're unlikely to a) hear of it, b) care about it, or c) break even on the legal costs of going after it.
oneshtein•88 days ago
Imagine that genetic modification escapes into wild, and then everyone on the plannet affected by it. How your patent will help to avoid that?
ceejayoz•88 days ago
It can't. That's not what patents are for. The same could happen for an unpatented modified plant.
We have the USDA for these things. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/program-update/aphis-issues-...
> APHIS found this modified petunia is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk compared to other cultivated petunia. As a result, it is not subject to regulation under 7 CFR part 340. From a plant pest risk perspective, this petunia may be safely grown and bred in the United States.
FuriouslyAdrift•88 days ago
Monsanto has sued (and won) several lawsuits where their patented seeds cross polinated with non-GMO crops due to wind, etc.
squigz•87 days ago
That is... crazy. Who do you sue? Mother Nature? The farmer who "received" their crops? Who pays damages, etc?
carlosjobim•88 days ago
Imagine that people have been breeding animals and plants for thousands and thousands of years, and still anybody is free to do what they want with them.
ceejayoz•88 days ago
Getting two animals to fuck and genetically engineering a plant in the lab are… not quite comparable in required levels of effort. Even then, if you want semen from a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred to try and build off those genes, it'll cost you. Or a purebred dog.
No one's putting in decades of R&D into something like this if they can only sell a few thousand for a single year before the big nurseries take over.
IAmBroom•88 days ago
People have been making wheels for nearly as long, and yet Ford can patent new wheel designs.
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throwawaymaths•88 days ago
plant patents are explicitly one of THE categories of patents (in the US).
https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/data/patde...
ambicapter•88 days ago
Imagine patenting something that doesn't exist in nature that you created? It's also not a foodstuff or required for living in any way.
asimovfan•88 days ago
there is no normative legality of these things.. or anything.. its just whatever people decide the law to be at the time..
IAmBroom•88 days ago
Edit: I did not realize that the person I'm replying to was commenting on the petunias, not the article.
MarkusQ•88 days ago
You are quite correct, that's not how it works.
Corn mazes are actually created by selectively planing the corn in a pattern or by selectively cutting down plants to create the maze. This can be done with a variety of different plants, but corn is a popular choice because of it's height, durability, and the timing of its harvest.
I suspect the similarity of its other name (maize) is just a coincidence.
schoen•87 days ago
Hopefully someone has "the Amazing Maize Maze". (Hopefully she's named May and so it's "May's Amazing Maize Maze".)
aaron695•87 days ago
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IAmBroom•88 days ago
The propagation won't spread the glow-in-the-dark, so why wouldn't they?
ceejayoz•88 days ago
The Firefly petunias retain their glow with propagation. Cloning via a cutting is the easiest and most reliable way.
The seeds are hit-or-miss, but the genes definitely get passed on in some.
anfractuosity•88 days ago
Why wouldn't propagation create further glowing plants, they're genetically modified?
IAmBroom•88 days ago
Because I mistakenly thought the comment was referring to the plants that are the subject of the article, which aren't genetically modified.
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IlikeKitties•87 days ago
I assume these plants are genetically modified? Sadly that propably means that they are illegal like GloFish[0] in Europe... I'd really like to get my hands on these, owning illegal genetically modified organism sounds like an absolutely cyberpunk-esque thing i'd want to do.
mytailorisrich•88 days ago
No expert or lawyer but a quick online search suggests that US parents on plants only cover asexual propagation, in which case if the plant produces fertile seeds you should be fine [1]. However, offsprings may then have different characteristics.
homeonthemtn•87 days ago
I have a rather beautiful pot of these. Touch of fertilizer and good soil and they did excellent.
The glow is most evident in new growth, so you want them healthy. And you will need total darkness to see them, ala any other bioluminescent fungi or plant.
DonHopkins•88 days ago
"Oh no, not again."
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124539-curiously-enough-the...
el_benhameen•88 days ago
I preordered one of these and it was pretty disappointing. It arrived half-dead, and the glow was imperceptible even in total darkness. That could be on the shipping, but for 50 bucks I was expecting something pretty dazzling.
AuryGlenz•88 days ago
Eh, ours was pretty neat. I say was because my wife has a habit of killing plants.
My mom’s is still going, and she’s made some cuttings that have done well. The glow is super dim, sure, but it’s still neat. Hopefully we can eventually get full size trees with the same effect - the size alone would add a lot of brightness.
el_benhameen•88 days ago
I complain, but I would absolutely buy a tree sized one of these
0cf8612b2e1e•88 days ago
Monsanto sells seeds made sterile so that users could not breed them in the wild. “Terminator seeds”.
luqtas•88 days ago
first of all it's Bayer, second. going for a 2°/3°/4°... generation makes them lose their genetic resistance to specific pesticides; this is not viable economically, otherwise farmers would go for a second round out of the seeds they collected! they spend millions/billions of USD on seeds for a reason
i don't like monocultures or "closed source science" but this talk about Monsanto being evil is rather weak and kept by people who think organics are the solution to sustainability; meanwhile they use mores pesticides/herbicides/fungicides than GMO, they have authorization to even use synthetics by USDA (or whatever your country's forum) and they use more land... organic has much more less research on health outcomes and they have MUCH LESS specialized equipment to spray poison around in precise quantities down to 10 mililiters per 1 kilometer sq in some scenarios you find in GMO farms
psolidgold•88 days ago
Farmers spend millions on seeds partly because they are/were contractually obligated to NOT harvest and reuse seeds gathered from the patented GMO plants. While you're correct that resistance traits generally are less effective in F2/F3 generations, they would be committing a crime if they even attempted. Aside from this farmer-hostile position, there's plenty of other reasons to believe Monsanto and now Bayer were historically and continue to be evil. There's a relevant Veritasium video posted just 2 days ago about this very topic and I think "evil" is a very apt description. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxVXvFOPIyQ
Secondly, your claims about organic farming are way more nuanced than you're making them out to be. For instance, the pesticides used in organic farming have way different toxicity profiles than conventional farming pesticides. The argument of "they use more pesticides" doesn't hold water under serious scrutiny.
Finally, you're creating an false dichotomy where everyone who criticizes Monsanto/Bayer must have a pro-organic stance. I am allowed to think that Monsanto/Bayer is evil while also supporting GMO farming. In fact, that's my exact position.
luqtas•87 days ago
so show me any meta-analysis pointing less poison usage on organic crops vs. GMO. i also challenge you to show me any paper pointing organic uses less land than GMO... organic pesticides have different toxicity profiles for sure, some have even greater impact than synthetics [0], most of the times applied without the safety of a high-tech cabin [1]. the very few independent meta-analysis studies done on health, points no health impact on eating GMO too
organics literally don't even compose 3% of the whole world food production. if we have a sane society that doesn't think only about meat and money, GMO research on various other crops would be pretty beautiful by now
again, i don't like proprietary science nor greed billionaire companies with no pro-social intention but they are screwing the planet much less than farmers going organic because "sustainability". rural flight is a solid phenomena, which by the way, still happens. high-tech farms allows machines do the work everyone doesn't want to and don't cite me some few people that would stay there if wasn't for the "aggressive competition of GMO [3]"(which goes from resources efficiency, investment and financial returns), because farming scores uber high on modern slavery. being a field worker applying a substance that can kill you in a minute if you swallow a swig and the hard endurance work of farming stuff has no comparison against city jobs... i worked for a year volunteering on WWOOF and the situation of some workers is miserable. most of the times organic is about the tech enthusiast or medium/upper class retiring into the country while running their production out of cheap labor that even if it was well paid, you probably don't want to retire as a working class farm field worker
[0] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402... [3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4218791/
rendaw•88 days ago
I'm looking forward to bioluminescent ivy.
antifarben•88 days ago
Does anyone know how to buy them in Europe?
ceejayoz•88 days ago
Given the response to more mundane petunia variants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_petunia), I strongly suspect you can't.
oneshtein•88 days ago
Introduction of glowing gene is a basic genetic modification, similar to "Hello, world!" in programming. Ask a biolab or do it yourself.
sampo•88 days ago
> Does anyone know how to buy them in Europe?
Given the strong anti-science anti-GMO sentiment in Europe, the company probably will not even bother to try to apply for a permit from the European regulatory agencies.
croes•88 days ago
Europe isn’t anti-science.
It’s more proven harmlessness vs dangerousness especially with food and living specimen.
Given the reaction time of politics and the industry I consider that a good thing.
If you want to see strong anti-science look at the current US administration.
sampo•87 days ago
> Europe isn’t anti-science.
When it comes to GMO plants, Europe is anti-science.
European Commission had a Chief Scientific Adviser, but they happened to choose a plant biologist for the role [1]. Then she dared to speak the scientific consensus about GMO plants (they're safe) [2] and EU decided to close the whole role [1,3] to get rid of her.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Glover_(biologist)#Europe...
[2] https://www.aei.org/articles/aaas-scientists-consensus-gmo-s...
[3] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25957-dont-scrap-euro...
Modified3019•88 days ago
I’m on mobile so trying to dig up the link is a pain, but the company is against commercial propagation/breeding, not personal propagation/breeding. Basically, be reasonable.
Note for others that it’s actually very difficult to accurately take a photo of the glow. They are overall quite “dim”, requiring near total darkness and eyes adapted to darkness for a bit to see. Unfortunately, if you expect what you see in the marketing materials, you’ll be disappointed. Cameras tend to either be unable to see the glow, or blow it way out of proportion. They are quite a bit above your typical glowing fungus though.
They can also be kinda finicky to grow until you learn what they need. Basically:
-Full sun. Internode length directly correlates with light received. I can make them “leggy” or ultra dense with my adjustable lights.
-Prefer cooler temperatures. They don’t seem to like high 80’s to 90’s. Seem to prefer 60-70 degrees F
-They happily survive the winter while inside, and can survive multiple years. Temps below 40F will cause them to start shutting down, with freezing/frost having a good chance to kill them.
-Need well drained soil. Straight potting soil will hold too much moisture for too long, causing root rot.
-Prefer bigger and deeper pots, like 10+”. I’d consider 6” the minimum
-Like being spoon fed fertilizer with waterings. Jack’s petunia feed is perfect.
-May be slightly sensitive to chlorine/chloramine in tap water. I suspect it contributes to some curious yellowing on the leaves. A bit of API stress coat takes care of that. This is good for other house plants as well.
-Sometimes the leaves will have curious yellowing (yellow veins, leaf tips) no matter what you do. It may just be how it is.
-Can be prone to fasciation (mutant flowers or stalks)
-When outside, can get bud worms that chew the flowers, leaves, or developing seed pods
-Fungus gnats can be an issue, especially when propagating cuttings.
-Susceptible to downy mildew (seen mostly in late summer/fall)
-They respond well to being chopped back every so often. I’ll occasionally remove 1/3rd to 2/3rds of their top mass. This also has the benefit of removing weight from the initially thin and weak stems (which thicken over time).
-Can be crossed with other petunias, and sometimes even tobacco. Note that pigments in the flowers from other petunia varieties block the glow, so they’ll be dimmer.
-Wild petunias (or whatever the ancestor plants are) rely on moths for pollination. You can get lots of seeds by manually pollinating the flowers.
-They tend to emit more fragrance at night (for attracting moths)
-The newest growth is the brightest, in particular the recently developed flowers that haven’t opened yet which truly look “glowing”. Normally the glow of most of the plant, is comparable to taking it outside into moonlight. The brightness will shift from day to day as well. Sometimes it’ll be much dimmer or brighter than normal.
reddit.com/r/FireflyPetunia/
If you want “cool glowing thing” but something less intensive, and momentarily much brighter, you may look into getting a glowing algae kit, like pyrofarms.com/
jawns•88 days ago
This seems less scary, but certainly more labor-intensive, than bioluminescence, where biological mechanisms are causing the glow.
Because the particles are injected into the plant but don't mess with the plant at a biological level, you're not going to be able to breed them. It's almost equivalent to painting their surface.
bookofjoe•91 days ago
yladiz•88 days ago
I worry we’re in the beginning of the Stray timeline.
araes•87 days ago
Had not actually seen the cat adventure game before the mention. Although the dead humanity timeline is quite dark, the game itself looks like an innovative adventure/mystery with a lot of physics puzzles and animal specific interactions. Neat art style and robot characterization. If I ever get back to trying games again, looks like something to investigate. Like games such as Tenchu where you're motivated to find a choice other than straight up fighting everything. Thanks for the mention if nothing else.
IAmGraydon•88 days ago
It looks cool I guess, but wouldn't it be easier and more reliable to just mix phosphorescent chemicals into the materials used to make a fake succulent? Succulents don't really do that much in terms of growth, and there are extremely realistic fakes already available.
dist-epoch•88 days ago
I mean you might as well put some leds inside then.
KaiserPro•88 days ago
does anyone know how they encapsulate the strontium/europium doped particles so that it doesn't kill the plant?
observationist•88 days ago
Injecting glow in the dark liquid into plants makes them glow in the dark... Blue dye sprayed on broccoli makes broccoli blue! Water wet, wind blows, sun rises!
This really reflects the prestige and institutional rigor of Nature these days.
lief79•88 days ago
If they've done the research to figure out what combination is durable and safe for the plants, then there is certainly some science there.
It's certainly more of an entertaining story than pushing the bounds of knowledge.
sambapa•88 days ago
Rip Terry Davis
curtisszmania•88 days ago
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