Wouldn’t it be great if the plants in your home could do more than just sit there looking pretty? Researchers at South China Agricultural University in the city of Guangzhou have found a way to upgrade them into soft glowing night lights in a range of hues, with the use of nanoparticles.
Oh, I thought this was going to be the genetic modification type. Rather it’s injecting the plant with some (hopefully harmless) glow stick liquid?
The team developed a light-emitting phosphor compound that enabled succulents with fleshy leaves to charge in sunlight or indoor LED light in just a couple of minutes, and then emit a soft uniform glow that lasts up to two hours.
The afterglow phosphor compound – which is similar to those found in glow-in-the-dark toys – is inexpensive, biocompatible, and negates the need for more complex methods of infusing bioluminescence in plants, like genetic modification. It simply gets injected into the leaves.
No, this is not a chemical reaction. This is phosphorescence, the same as the classical glow in the dark stuff that charges with light.
