On the streets of our cities we used to see a lot of plants that carry out, as a rule, purely decorative function. But what if all this flora it would be possible to give additional functions? For example, the day plants produce oxygen, and in the night lights of the street? Sounds fantastic, but in fact, this soon can become a reality.
In fact, such an idea makes sense for economic reasons, because, according to various studies, for lighting the streets at night spent from 10 to 20% of total produced electricity. According to the publication Science Daily, scientists are very close to the creation of bioluminescent plants. Moreover, this idea may not be that impossible as it seems at first glance.
Many living organisms have the ability to glow in the dark. Moreover, previously, scientists have managed to “activate” the necessary genes in plants. For example, managed to achieve the luminescence of the tobacco leaves by applying genetic engineering. But now scientists from mit have decided to use nanotechnology. They created a silicon polymer and nanoparticles, which are able to move inside the leaves and stems of plants in a certain direction, thus “separating” the light. Inside each of the particles contains one of three substances: luciferin (which emits light), luciferase (an enzyme that causes the luciferin to glow) and coenzyme a (it increases the activity of luciferase). All three nanoparticles under pressure in an aqueous medium placed in the stomata of plants.
In the end, scientists were able to achieve the luminescence of the leaves of the plant, which is 100 000 times higher than the one used for genetically modified counterpart. Most interesting is that the glow is easily possible to disable, by adding a compound that blocks any of the three above-mentioned substances. At the moment the maximum period of illumination of the plants is four hours, but the scientists plan to increase this figure.
Glowing plants will illuminate the streets
Vladimir Kuznetsov