I got my firefly petunias from light.bio around a month or so ago and they're now just starting to take off. This picture was taken in a dark room with no windows, though I'm sure the phone brightened it up a bit. They aren't as bright as I was imagining, but I still find them neat.
In between life, we garden.
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Probably very unpopular opinion. I don’t get it how you could buy genetically modified plants.
-unpredictable impact on ecosystems
-uncontrolled spread through insects/seed
-no long term studies available
I really wish people would be more responsible with our environment.
depends on your definition of genetically modified. you'd be hard pressed to find any plant that hasn't been selectively bred, spliced and adapted by humans.
That's a disingenuous argument. You can't selectively breed an completely foreign gene into an organism. I can't believe this even has to be said, but I guess the GMO lobby gets to people more than I thought.
Yes you can, it just takes a lot more effort to get the right random mutation.
Good luck breeding a plant until it replicates jellyfish DNA for fluorescence.
No one lobbied me lol. They cross bred a petunia with a mushroom. It's roughly the same concept as when humans bred maize.
Not really. They transformed plant cells in a lab with GFP from a mushroom and established a stable transgenic line. This can't be done without modern techniques. Not the same as breeding them
No they didn't crossbred it. Fungi and plants are so far apart in the tree of life that suggesting this is ludicrous. You can't get a fungal spore and place it in a petunia's flower and get a hybrid.
DNA manipulation in a lab and selective breeding are fundamentally different. It's silly to try to compare both.
I think it’s a fair concern in general but fine in this case since the company almost certainly edited in the lux operon which is one of the most well studied and understood gene switches out there. It and similar pathways have been used in many branches of science for decades. I think the novelty here is just that it’s in a consumer product instead.
Some GMOs are approved and released before we fully understand their long-term ecological or health impacts. While short-term studies may show no harm, ecological processes unfold over decades.
Another thing is that introducing glowing flowers might make genetic modification seem harmless or trivial. This could lead to less critical public debate and a gradual erosion of caution in how such technologies are used.
According to the website, they can't reproduce by seed, only by division.
In each seed this gene would segregate some wouldn't express at all, some lower and if you did it more times more than likely the mutation would be lost
Is that still the case with gene splicing vs natural mutation?
I think the concern is more about cross-pollination, not seeds from the plant directly
You don't need to plant them outside
Above
Don't eat them