34
Chinese scientists reveal glowing plants that could light cities
(www.euronews.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
34 points (97.2% liked)
Science
20480 readers
73 users here now
Subscribe to see new publications and popular science coverage of current research on your homepage
founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
for fuck sakes, no.
These have a dim glow similar to mushrooms, no one is going to light a city with that.
You don't always need a bright light, lots of cities even cut lights few hours at night (0-5 am) to preserve both energy and dark sky for biodiversity.
Some cities are already using glowing plants, but more for events, there is a start-up that provides this solution since few years
I don't think there's any fundamental reason why you couldn't get plants to produce a stronger glow though.
I think the energy metabolism of any organism would limit the amount of light you can get. I don't believe any organism (except maybe bacteria with lots of nutrients provided) has that much energy to spare and handle without dying pretty fast.
there's actually some research on the subject that I linked in the other reply in this thread
Of course there is, you can't get more energy out than you put in.
Obviously, but that doesn't mean plants can't be designed to accumulate energy during the day though photosynthesis and release it at night in form of bioluminescence. There's actually a whole separate line of research regarding that: