What if we used trees to light our streets instead of electric street lamps?
The first sentence in the video pitch should give some idea as to the ambition of the crowdfunding campaign for bioluminescent plants. The Kickstarter campaign has crossed a quarter of a million dollars with almost a month to go.
Making a glowing plant involves finding and synthesizing bioluminescence genes from organisms like fireflies or bacteria and having those genes synthesized. Bacteria are then used as a carrier to introduce these genes into the plants, thus creating fertile plants that glow. This is the theory, at least.
For $40 you can pre-order glowing plant seeds that can be planted at home, but there are other rewards too. For $90 you can preorder a book on the process of creating a glowing plant, or for $250 you can receive a “maker kit” to turn any plant into a glowing plant.
Someone has even contributed $10,000 (!) to have a message transcoded into DNA and inserted into the glowing plant genome.
Woah.
Click here to check the campaign out on Kickstarter
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