You Can Now Buy Your Very Own Green Glowing Plant Online: The Starlight Avatar

Imagine walking into a garden at nighttime. The scent of jasmine hangs heavy in the air as you journey down a gravel path past trees and carefully-manicured bushes. While this would be beautiful in and of itself, imagine that these plants are glowing with their own light-a bit like fireflies or jellyfish. It sounds impossible, but that's exactly what one scientist is working toward.

Alex Krichevsky has been fascinated with bioluminescence for years, so it's not surprising that he came up with the idea for a bioluminescent plant, similar to the glowing plants that appeared in the film, Avatar. Partnering with Tal Eidelberg, he created Bioglow, a biotechnology company that aimed to create the world's first autoluminescent plants. And guess what? He succeeded.

"It's impossible to know if a plant is going to work or not until you've tried it out," said Krichevsky, as he described the process of creating a glowing plant.

In this case, he tested the plant, Nicotiana alata. Using a gene gun, he fired gold particles coated with DNA from a species of bioluminescent marine algae at plant cells. Then, these plant cells were cultivated into individual plants; some of them had incorporated the genetic material from the marine algae and glowed at night.

"It's a nice little plant," said Krichevsky. "It's easy to work with, and the other thing is that it has a half life cycle. We think of things in terms of life cycles since we have to grow them from a single cell. If you do a tree, it will take many years. But if you do something that only takes a month or two, that's a lot faster."

The result was the so-called Starlight Avatar, a plant that gives off its own light in the dark. While Krichevsky says it's possible to create the same effect with other plants, the main issue is funding.

"We sent them to some friends and customers, and they're working fine. The bigger challenge is not so much making brighter plants, but educating the public about it because people don't know it exists," said Krichevsky. He went on to say, "We can't go on a big marketing campaign. It's challenging and it's going to take time."

With that said, the possibilities are exciting. Krichevsky imagines plants that can be used to light up your house at night, and night gardens composed of glowing trees and flowers.

For those worried about glowing plants spreading rampant through the countryside, though, they shouldn't be. The plant can only be propagated by cuttings, and because the modifications are made to the core plant and not the nucleus, Krichevsky propagates the plant only in the places he wants them.

Right now, though, Krichevsky is focusing on selling enough plants to get to the next stage of research and development. In fact, you can get your own Starlight Avatar plant for yourself, though there are a few things to keep in mind if you do.

The plant is relatively small and only lives for about two months, which is comparable to the normal life cycle of Nicotiana alata (though Krichevsky says he's had some specimens last four to six months). The plant also needs to be kept inside its cultivation box, which limits how much it can grow.

"They're very sensitive to a lot of things," said Krichevsky. "We managed to keep some of them for four or five months, but they thrive best inside."

With that said, it is a glowing plant, which is fairly awesome in the grand scheme of things. The next steps are to look at creating different glowing plants and possibly create larger containers so that the plants can grow taller.

For more information about Bioglow, visit their website here.

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