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Glowing plants!


TCurrell

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I found this on Kickstarter a while ago and though to myself "If i had $250 spare and they shipped to the uk I'd love to have a go at making a glowing VFT"

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit?ref=search

what do you guys think? pretty cool huh?

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Woooooow! This is really cool. I made sure to share it on my facebook page, but these guys have already raised a whole lot of money. It seems amazing, I hope they can pull it off. Just think, you could walk at night without having to worry about the eerie street light shutting off as you walk.

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I'm inclined to agree with ada, whilst the idea of having a glowing nepenthes or sarracenia is highly appealing to the big kid in me, the havoc that having a plant like that (carnivorous or no) growing wild and spreading it's genes into the wild population isn't something that's particularly desirable.

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I think the idea of the genes spreading to native plants is quite unlikely as for example VFT pollen getting lose even if it happened to fall into a native plant would not fertilize it due to the species difference. the problem comes when people modify versions of the native species and cross pollination within species occurs.

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People who are afraid of genetically modified organisms clearly don't understand genetics and evolution, especially when it comes to evolutionary disadvantageous modifications. Glow-in-the dark fish will be the first to be eaten and not hard to round up carriers of the genes. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful with it -a drought tolerant, pest resistance super crop for instance might become an invasive weed despite feeding the masses. Remember selective breeding is genetic modification and feral domesticated animals/plants (which it should be noted do not maintain selected traits but revert under natural selection pressures to 'wild type') are a problem but you can't grow foreign species or even native cultivars and then turn around and say no to lab-based genetic modifications in case they 'get out'; that's just total hypocrisy.

I'm a little surprised that there hasn't been more in the way of horticultural application of GM technology. There's obviously money in it (a truly honest-to-definition black rose -£££ kerc-hing !) and without looking to non-analogous genomes like jellyfish, just identifying the genes, and crucially the genetic switches, for leaf and petal colour and rewriting a bit of code (the hard part) would revolutionise the industry. Maybe it's a case of traditional breeders feeling threatened as much as half-informed fear-based bandwagonning. Glow-in-the-dark trees? yes please. It can't do any more harm to the planet than we've already done and continue to do.

Apologies for the rant.

Edited by Ordovic
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@Ordovic You just summed up my views very nicely there, usually when i try to express them i get shot down by people using the "It's against nature" argument which i too have always found hypocritical and even more ironic when written on an internet forum.

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Of course we should trust all the big business people when they tell us how good gm food will be for us. After all look at all the sage advice we recieved from them about how good for us tobacco products and alcohol were. They never did us any harm did they.

Edited by FredG
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And don't forget wind farms,the power of the future, IF THEY ARE ALLOWED TO BE TURNED ON!

CHEAPER ELECTRICITY MY A**E.

More money for the fat cat business men and their back scratching cronies

ada

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Obviously you can't trust what the corporations say, but then I don't know what they're saying and don't care. If you know the science behind it all you don't have to ask 'is it safe'. On a broad scale the answer is almost always both yes and no -like all technology it's how it's used!

I agree ada, energy supply is (on of) the biggest swindle of our times but why would anyone think/say clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels? The point is that renewables might just have saved our collective skins in the long term, but it's too late now so who cares right?

Ah, remember the Silurian when atmospheric Carbon dioxide levels were 900ppm, atmospheric Oxygen was 40% of today's level, global average temperature was 20 degrees centigrade (and with 3% less sunlight), there was half the land surface above sea level there is today and almost nothing lived on it anyway? Those were the days. Let's get that back and burn all the oil and coal deposited since. And frack the hell out that shale. Don't worry about mass extinction it's just business; also the famine, disease and war will really help boost the economy.

Edited by Ordovic
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I think they will have to find a way to be able to turn it off and on.

Imagine this going wild,it could cause light pollution at night that could upset whole eco systems.

ada

I didn't think of that actually! Good thinking. I was too excited by the idea. I wonder how/if they will solve this problem. It is still an exciting idea, so many in another decade we will see something that won't be a danger and will still help with our needs.

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I think they will have to find a way to be able to turn it off and on.

Imagine this going wild,it could cause light pollution at night that could upset whole eco systems.

ada

I didn't think of that actually! Good thinking. I was too excited by the idea. I wonder how/if they will solve this problem. It is still an exciting idea, so many in another decade we will see something that won't be a danger and will still help with our needs.

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