Is there a plant that blooms and glows? Fruits of lighting

As the object of “highlighting”, scientists chose the favorite model plant of geneticists - the inconspicuous Tal’s rhizome. Arabidopsis thaliana. If everything goes well with him, then at the next stage biologists promise to make the rose glow.

Interestingly, “biohackers,” as the press nicknamed them, do not require any permits to work. The authors of the project say that according to US laws, luminous plants are not subject to regulation: they are not intended for human or animal consumption, and the federal agricultural agency APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) is only interested in the method of introducing transgenes. If the genes of the luciferase system are introduced into the plant using a method that does not use pathogens (initially it was planned to use a conditionally pathogenic Agrobacterium), APHIS will not be able to interfere with the work of Evans and his colleagues.

Appeared, in addition to the specialized environmental activist press, in The Guardian. The Canadian organization ETC Group was the most active - it tried to organize a public campaign designed to put pressure on Kickstarter to not provide funding to “biohackers.”

It is difficult to say whether Evans and his associates will be able to overcome the resistance and deliver the seeds on time to the enthusiasts who supported the project. So far it seems that they have a much better chance of this than AquaBounty with their long-suffering salmon. After all, “biohackers,” unlike AquaBounty, Monsanto and other biotech companies, will have to fight not with the American bureaucracy in the form of the FDA, but with public opinion and environmental activists, who, fortunately or unfortunately, are not yet so powerful.

Glow-in-the-dark plants that look like they came straight out of the shimmering forests of Avatar are ready to take up residence in your garden. Growing a glowing tree will, of course, take some time, but you can order glow-in-the-dark seeds from Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant in the cruciferous family, now.

Glowingplant planned to begin shipping seeds as early as next week, according to the Kickstarter campaign that launched the company last year. But, according to the company, the release was delayed until the fall - not because of production glitches or failures with the glow of the plants themselves, but because the project raised more money than they originally expected.

A few months ago, we asked our investors if they wanted us to start sending seeds on time, or if we should use the rest of the funds to improve luminosity, explains Anthony Evans, CEO of the synthetic biology startup that has created bioluminescent flora.

And the vast majority advised us to work on improving luminosity.

In order to create a bioluminescent plant, scientists artificially crossed Arabidopsis and the luminous marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri. Simply inserting bacterial DNA into a plant wouldn't work—genes require a number of changes to work correctly in a plant—so the team took a synthetic approach.

First, the researchers assembled the genes virtually, using software called a genetic compiler, which allows scientists to assemble the DNA of new life forms on computers. After that, they sent the gene characteristics to DNA assembly companies, which built the actual DNA.

To import freshly harvested genes into Arabidopsis, the team used a bacterium called Agrobacterium tumefaciens. In nature, A. tumefaciens is a pathogenic organism that inserts its genes into plant cells, causing cancer. But its neutralized version can deliver the synthesized DNA to the host plant without harming it.

The researchers inserted the resulting genes into leaves and assessed how well the plant adapted and how much light it produced. Thanks to additional funding, scientists are now experimenting with a range of slightly different DNA sequences to produce the best glow.

We plan to test about 1,500 sequences,” Evans notes.

Once scientists have found the best DNA sequence, they will create a commercial glow-in-the-dark Arabidopsis plant using a tool called a gene gun that bombards the plant with nanoparticles designed to deliver the DNA inside.

When it flowers, Arabidopsis will produce seeds that carry new genes, and its offspring will also glow in the dark. Now a team of scientists is testing the ability of the second generation of Arabidopsis to glow.

When the seeds eventually go on sale, it will be the world's largest release of a genetically engineered plant—a concept that some environmentalists are downright uncomfortable with.

In modern science, synthetic biology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are highly controversial concepts. There are concerns that GMOs pose a danger to humans or may even become invasive species.

When Glowing Plant first launched its project on Kickstarter, a group of anti-synthetic biology activists in Canada launched a kickstopper campaign to stop the project. The initiative raised just $2,274, while Evans' team came within just a couple of dollars of half a million, exceeding its original goal by more than seven times.

Christina Holmes, who studies the human implications of biotechnology and plant breeding innovations at Dalhousie University in Canada, notes that the risks vary from case to case.

To put it bluntly, not all GMOs are created equal, says Holmes. – Much depends on what plant you use, what genes you used, and, finally, for what purpose.

The risk increases if the plants in question are intended for human consumption. But Arabidopsis is just a weed. From the point of view of the invasive danger of species, the risks also need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. This depends in part on how easily the plant in question spreads its pollen, and therefore its genes, to other plants.

In the case of Arabidopsis, the fears are unfounded because the plant is primarily a self-pollinating grass, says Kyle Taylor, a molecular biologist and botanist at Glowing Plant.

Ask any Arabidopsis biologist whether it is easy to get these plants to cross-pollinate, and they will tell you that this is a completely non-trivial task.

Taylor also added that the hybrid would have a much harder time surviving because producing light would require additional energy and would weaken the plant. The hybrid may even confuse its own light with sunlight, which can negatively affect its metabolism.

If you put a regular Arabidopsis next to a glowing one, Taylor admits, the glowing plant looks less happy.

Holmes argues that you never know in advance how a new species will behave, but light modification certainly "will not make it more powerful as a weed" - compared to, say, canola, which is genetically modified to resist herbicides.

According to Evans' predictions, the luminous plant should make the concept of synthetic biology interesting and relatable to people.

The reason many people don't trust biotechnology is because they don't understand it, Evans said. “We believe that we will be able to change attitudes towards biotechnology by creating something tangible, something that people can understand.

So will we really see a forest filled with Pandora trees that will replace street lights, reduce electricity consumption and reduce CO2 emissions?

It takes a lot of work to get to that level,” Taylor admits.

This is biology, so there can always be some nuances that we don't fully understand. But we have a couple of ideas on how to achieve what you want.

What to give to your beloved mother, sister or wife? This is one of the most common problems on the eve of any celebration. A win-win option is a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. The florist market is filled with a rich variety, so there will never be problems with choice. However, to stand out, you should pay attention to luminous flowers! This is a fashionable and incredibly beautiful new product that will win the heart of any woman.

Our business assessment:

Starting investment - 5,000 rubles.

Market saturation is low.

The difficulty of starting a business is 1/10.

glowing flower

The luminous bouquet consists of fresh flowers, pre-treated with bio-gel or special paint. Thanks to the procedure, an incredibly beautiful glowing effect is created in the dark. A simple technique makes each bud unique and special. This miracle leaves no one indifferent!

Treatment products are absolutely safe for plants, pets and humans. They undergo thorough testing and meet all environmental standards and requirements. Gel and paint are easy to use, everyone can decorate a bouquet on their own. This activity is simple, a lot of fun, and also pays well.

A chic bouquet will fill your home with a fabulous mood. It will add a unique twist to a familiar interior. But more importantly, the hero of the occasion will really like it. Where to buy glowing flowers? You can purchase an original gift in a store or order it online. It is important to look for this gift in advance, since the novelty has not yet spread.

Instructions: how to make glowing flowers yourself

How to make a glowing flower with your own hands? An interesting bouquet can be purchased in the store. However, it is more interesting to create a fairy tale yourself. Moreover, you do not need to have special skills and abilities. For a pleasant process, you need flowers, gel or paint, brushes, as well as imagination and a good mood. You can start working!

Processing buds with paint

For the creative process you will need paint, a brush or a spray bottle (it all depends on the desired pattern). As soon as the materials are prepared, you can begin to create a masterpiece that is unlike the rest. It is important to follow simple rules so that everything works out perfectly:

• before starting coloring, mix the paint thoroughly, as the pigment settles to the bottom of the jar over time;
• using a brush, paint is carefully applied to the bud in the desired sequence;
• You can apply dots, stripes, patterns, letters to the petals, or even paint the entire flower. It all depends on your imagination, the main thing is not to be afraid to create.

Glowing flower paint is great for cut and live plants, and can also be applied to any souvenirs. It has a light and permeable texture that allows the bud to breathe. The substance is odorless and absolutely safe. Upon completion of application, you need to wait 2 minutes so that it is absorbed into the petal and dries thoroughly.

The paint is recharged from a daylight or artificial light source. Therefore, fabulous beauty will delight all the time the flower is alive.

Secret! To achieve brighter shades, florists recommend applying white paint (base) immediately, and then using colored paint.

Application of glow gel

Glowing biogel for flowers has a denser and more voluminous texture than paint. When applied to a petal, it is absolutely invisible, so you don’t have to worry that the bud will look rough and sloppy. The substance is odorless, and its composition will not harm humans or animals. The gel effectively retains moisture in the plant, preventing it from evaporating, which prolongs the life of the plant.

Making glowing flowers is a lot of fun. Applying the gel to the petals is quite simple:

• choose a flower or make a composition;
• With a slight movement of the brush, apply the gel in the desired order;
• wait a few seconds for the substance to dry.

Using gel, unique, simple patterns are drawn on the petals, letters are written, or chaotic elements are placed. Due to its unique texture, it is applied only with a brush. Then you need to wait about 30 seconds for the glowing gel to dry completely. Florists note that the flower looks great if the substance is placed inside the bud. The beautiful glow in the dark makes you believe in a fairy tale.

Secret! To create a holistic composition, florists recommend using additional green branches, beads, a net or a basket.

Consumption and average cost of paint and bio-gel

Glowing paint for flowers is produced in jars of different sizes. Starting from 50 ml and ending with a whole liter. Therefore, the cost ranges from 400–5500 rubles, respectively. You can purchase a set that contains all the shades at the same time. The color palette of the substance is very rich, you can even get confused in its diversity. Paint consumption is minimal. On average, only 1 g is used per bud, but it all depends on the desired pattern.

The gel for creating luminous flowers is made from high-quality substances. It is produced in cans of different sizes. You can purchase a minimum quantity of 50 g, the starting price starts from 500 rubles. If large volumes are needed, then it is proposed to buy biogel in a liter container for 3,000 rubles. The gel is used quite sparingly; a small jar is enough to decorate up to 80 buds. However, this calculation is approximate, since everything depends on the chosen design.

3 simple ways to sell luminous flowers

Don’t think that living luminous flowers are not interesting to anyone. This is a fashionable and modern novelty on the flower market. She is now in great demand and interesting to people. Setting up sales of a fabulous product is quite simple:

• fresh ideas are always interesting to people who are professionally involved in decorating and holding holidays;
• create a page on Instagram, Facebook or VK, where there will be photos of glowing flowers. There is no doubt that orders will definitely arrive;
• ready-made compositions can be offered to the nearest flower shops.

Obviously, glow-in-the-dark flowers are the start of a great business. Once you try to understand how the system works, then it is simply impossible to stop.

A new idea for an outdated business - glowing flowers

The cost of paint or bio-gel is quite affordable. However, those who sell flowers professionally will benefit the most. A new find allows you to decorate and modernize your business, bringing in good income.

This technique can also be considered by those who are just starting out in the flower business. The new product will allow you to immediately attract many customers. Moreover, affordable prices for luminous materials allow you to take a step forward and break into a new business with modern innovations. Moreover, now luminous bouquets have just begun to appear on the shelves.

Flowers that glow at night are a promising future in modern floristry. The idea of ​​creating a business is more than 100% profitable. However, financial investment and hard work are required initially. Now is the time to decide on a new step; the result will not take long to arrive!

Two years ago, our specialists were tasked with finding an interesting business idea that would be based on mass consumer demand, such as food or flowers. It had to be an interesting product or service that everyone needed and had great prospects for Russian entrepreneurs.

All the business ideas they found at that time required too much investment, rarely had a mass appeal, did not coincide with the mentality of the Russian buyer, or in one form or another this market in Russia was already occupied.

In Holland, we found a unique business idea for applying a self-luminous bio-composition to the buds of fresh flowers, thanks to which the flowers become beautiful not only during the day, but also at night. There, such flowers decorated the windows of flower shops and made a strong impression on all foreigners at night. We decided to settle on this business idea. Flowers are bought and sold every day, on almost every corner and in every store, not to mention how many flower shops and florist salons have opened recently.

According to statistics, in 2006 the country's total income from the sale of fresh flowers was about 2.6 billion US dollars. According to experts, the latter figure may increase by another 25% or more if new technologies are used, incl. and to create luminous flowers, the cost of which, of course, will be much higher than the price of ordinary flowers that cannot glow.

When buying bouquets of flowers, people try to be original, first of all they pay attention to beautifully designed and unusual compositions, decorated with ribbons and sprayed with glitter sprays or simply painted in bright colors, with inscriptions, pictures, etc. After talking with the directors of flower salons, we came to the conclusion that flowers that glow in the dark are very original and will certainly be in great demand among our Russian customers.

We began to study in more detail all possible ways of applying self-luminous compositions to fresh flowers. All the compositions we found led to the rapid death of flowers and had an unpleasant odor; the paint was quite expensive and did not have certificates for use on flowers. After a year of continuous negotiations and bidding, we managed to buy the technology and recipe for making a self-luminous composition for flowers from a Dutch entrepreneur. This is a bio-gel that glows in the dark, it is specially created for application to living plant tissues, it prevents early withering of the cut flower, it is made on the basis of aluminum and zinc, it is absolutely harmless to health, it has a certificate, a sanitary and epidemiological permit, and for its application you need just a soft brush, which is very convenient for sellers: as they sell, they apply the gel to the flowers themselves or according to the buyer’s order.

After applying the gel to the surface of the petals, the flower begins to glow in the dark, accumulates light from any source and continues to glow for 3-4 hours, depending on the duration of exposure to light.

BIO-GEL increases the lifespan of a flower bud by reducing the evaporation of moisture from its surface; wilted flowers retain their glow property for an unlimited time and can decorate vases as dried flowers. The gel has a liquid consistency (packaging 100 ml), when it falls on the petals, it is partially absorbed and thickens without disturbing the shape of the flower.
Gel consumption: 1 ml. on a flower.

According to sales statistics, in January 2008, in medium and large cities of the country, 10 liters of products were sold per 3,000 people. One flower shop sells more than 50 ml of bio-gel per day, bringing a profit from the sale of 200-400 rubles. per day and 6-12,000 rubles. per month. Accordingly, by arranging the supply of bio-gel to 10 flower outlets, your income will be 60-120,000 rubles. Well, the dynamics of increasing sales growth depends only on the person’s personal qualities - look for new customers and earn more!

A small A4 sign - FLOWERS GLOWING IN THE DARK, this is all that is needed for advertising, the rest is explained and shown by flower sellers.

Usually there is no end to interest, and buyers, having learned that flowers can glow in the dark, usually ask to treat their bouquets with our “miracle gel”. All that is required of you is to promote this new and unique service in your city and region, supplying bio-gel and promotional materials to all flower outlets in your city, very rarely anyone refuses, and next week they begin to place new orders for the gel .

You might think that the profit figures are inflated?
Just imagine how big the flower market really is. Entire flower powers have long been established in the world, the leader of which, of course, is Holland. This country has the largest auctions where flower products from many countries of the world are traded. And at the moment, the interests of auctioneers are directed precisely towards Russia. We have very great potential for increasing the capacity of the flower market; in real terms, it can grow tens of times more.

Why does the OSCAR company strive specifically for the regions? If in the capital the flower market looks more or less modern, then locally the picture is somewhat different. Marketers predict huge growth with a competent and civilized approach to flower sales in the regions. Do the maximum for the customer’s convenience, expand the range, provide new services and sales will immediately go up.

On our website WWW.OSCAR-SIB.RU you can learn in detail about this and our other offers for those who want to start their own business.

The OSСAR company is glad to have new clients and partners, let’s together make the Russian flower market better today! And then tomorrow a piece of it will become your source of income!

We will be happy to answer all your questions about:
[email protected]
[email protected]
icq: 352 933 896
+7 383 291 41 86

Glowing plants

The glow of plants in the dark is a rather unusual phenomenon and not known to many. But if at the end of summer, after warm rain, you find yourself at night in a rare mixed forest or in a clearing with old stumps of pine, spruce, birch, aspen or alder, where honey mushrooms have been repeatedly collected, you will be able to admire this fabulous picture with your own eyes. Take a closer look - and in the mysterious silence among the dark silhouettes of whispering trees in the darkness of a summer night, you will see magical “lights” glowing with phosphorescent light. Try hitting a rotten pium with a light hatchet or chipping off a thin layer of bark: sparks will scatter to the sides as “lights” of rotten wood. At home, such a rotten thing does not glow for long.

On the exposed wood of such rotten wood, it is easy to notice black veins or branched dark brown “cords” (rhizomorphs) ending in thin whitish threads - mycelium. This is a mycelium of well-known mushrooms that have settled on wood - autumn or summer honey fungus. These mushrooms do not glow with a cap or a stem, but with the mycelium, which weaves around the destroyed wood like a thin web. And it seems that the entire stump or rotten tree is glowing!

Honey mushroom spores in the soil are not afraid of sudden changes in temperature. In addition to the fruiting bodies, growing rhizomorphs appear in the mycelium, which infect the roots of trees and through them pass to the trunks, rising to a height of 2.5-3 m (Fig. 12). The appearance of mycelium on a living tree (most often through damaged bark) leads to the destruction of the wood and its death.

Rice. 12. Honey fungus on a tree trunk affected by its rhizomorphs

As you can see, these edible mushrooms not only provide pleasure in the form of freshly prepared or stored food, but also cause harm to forestry.

There is information that in some cases, another mushroom common in the Non-Black Earth Region, the true butterfly, glows, especially when its fruiting body is already overripe and begins to collapse.

The water surface of vats and trays of flower pots in greenhouses and hothouses are often covered with so-called golden algae (Chromophyton Rosanoffii), visible only under a microscope, the zoospores of which give a spectacular golden glow under directed lighting. Due to the presence of a chromatophore in each zoospore and its ability to orient the reflecting spherical surface in the direction of the flow of light, the most intense reflection occurs when viewing the water surface at the smallest acute angle to it. If you look at the water from above perpendicularly, the algae coating appears colorless and does not give shine at all. But this effect no longer occurs due to its own glow, but only due to the capture of light and its directed reflection.