Could Glow-in-the-Dark Tobacco Plants Light Up the Living Rooms of the Future?
By Kristin Hohenadel,
Slate
| 01. 15. 2014
Glowing plants - as seen in the seemingly fantastical flora of the 2009 film Avatar - are no longer just a special effect. Molecular biologist Alexander Krichevsky, of St Louis biotech company Bioglow, has developed the Starlight Avatar, a genetically modified tobacco plant that glows in the dark, as a first step towards a world in which our highways and homes might be illuminated not with electricity but with the luminescent glow of plant life. … Bioglow is holding an online auction of 20 Starlight Avatar plants for those in the US who are curious about seeing the luminescent wonders for themselves.
''There are no naturally occurring glowing/bioluminescent plants in nature,'' Krichevsky says. ''While there are a number of various glowing species - fireflies, glow worms, glowing fish etc, there are no glowing plants. Starlight Avatar is the first one.''
He says that ostensibly ''bioluminescent'' plants have existed for about 20 years, mostly for research purposes.
''These plants, however, needed to be sprayed with chemicals to achieve a temporary and very weak glowing effect, or be illuminated by UV lights,''...
Related Articles
By Hamed Aleaziz, The New York Times | 08.13.2026
Immigrants at Ellis Island undergoing a medical inspection | Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
In 1924, Congress sent a message to the world: We are no longer ready to take “your tired, your poor, your huddled...
What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...
By Dan Falk, Nautilus | 08.20.2026
The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the...
By Emily Packard Dawson and Lainie Friedman Ross, MedPage Today | 08.18.2026
Few things evoke a greater sense of desperation than a parent seeking an experimental treatment for their child. That desperation can make even extraordinary risks seem worth taking. This dynamic has come into stark relief after Mei, a 6-year-old girl...
