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Glowing Plants: Natural Lighting with no Electricity

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http://kck.st/ZGyckx

There's a bit too much on the page for me to paste here but it's definitely worth checking out, even if they won't ship the seed to Australia.

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Can you switch them off at night?

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Cool idea. Looks far too early to use as light source anytime soon though.

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luciferin and luciferase is the devils work...lol

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WTF? What if my message codes for further evil?

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Slightly weird how much time and resources get put in to a project like this. I guess if they learn how to insert firefly genes into something bigger that could genuinely be used as a light source eg a tree it might be more 'useful'. I personally think we might be better off gene modifying ourselves so we can see in the dark, ingest toxic plants, breathe underwater, tolerate hot and cold weather, grow our own fur clothes and so on, that way we can leave nature alone to do what she does best instead of trying to modify everything else to suit our poorly designed / evolved bodies.

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Interesting way of putting it whitewind. I'm slowly coming around to the idea of genetically modifying our own genome. But it's very scary still.

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Yuck. No thanks!

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Wouldn't you like to be able to swim with the dolphins and fly with the birds? With zooming eyes that can see beyond thecolour spectrum, echo-location and telepathy? I'd love a pair of angel wings that could fold away into fins while I swim! Watch the sunrise in the arctic naked and hurl myself off the peak of everest to fly my way down to the jungles of Bhutan with the wind behind me

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The alternative seems to be to turn everything into unimaginative concrete jungle, polluted rivers and oceans and vast monocultures of tasteless crops.

To quote bogfrog (sorry to pick on you)

Yuck. No thanks

I think you might even agree with me, seen in a different light. We could keep our basic form just modify it so it's better and more adaptable to our environment so we don't trash it.

Give me wings!

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Well when it's framed as - we change, or we change the environment - it seems a lot more obvious. Of course there's a neither option (I'm guessing that's what bogfrog would choose :P ). Humans need to get life to spread off of Earth too - we're possibly the only chance that Earthkind has to survive an eventual cosmic cataclysm (it's practically guaranteed), so we'll need to do something. I'm reading a rather kick-ass book called 'Crescent City Rhapsody' that deals with all of this - it's one of those horizon-expanding books. It gives perspective to a future that appears bleak. :)

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Wouldn't you like to be able to swim with the dolphins and fly with the birds? With zooming eyes that can see beyond thecolour spectrum, echo-location and telepathy? I'd love a pair of angel wings that could fold away into fins while I swim! Watch the sunrise in the arctic naked and hurl myself off the peak of everest to fly my way down to the jungles of Bhutan with the wind behind me

I think many of those experiences are possible without resorting to such meddling. I have flown, swam and breathed underwater, teleported, time travelled, experienced being other people, telepathically communicated and jumped into the sky in my dreams, sometimes by choice sometimes things just happen. I agree with you that it is a better alternative to the concrete jungle but something really makes my insides squirm when i read about scientists genetically altering plants and animals. Its like playing god, and as a race i dont think we are mature enough to be playing god.

I think that when left to its own devices, evolution unfolds as it should, and the reason we are stuck here in such a conundrum is because humans have always tried to interfere with the natural process of change. People became terrified of the concept of their own morality, so we have spent billions of dollars extending human life, now we are faced with catastrophic results of a perversely over-populated world. Instead of welcoming the natural processes that life and existence progress by, humans cant resist the opportunity to manipulate things to suit their will.

Edit: there wouldnt be any need for genetically altered light plants if free energy hadnt been supressed, which is just another example of humans interferring with the natural progression of change.

To me, this is just another baby-monsanto.

Glowing plants are one thing, but if they succeed, i bet what comes next on their adgenda wont be so benevolent.

Edited by bogfrog
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I get what you are saying bigfrog, totally. I think there is a massive problem with meddling when there is profit/power involved, also there is the moral issue of essentially experimenting with our children as adult DNA is much harder to adjust.

The problem is that of basic evolution, we have evolved to this imperfect state where mass meddling with the environment is not only possible it happens almost without any checks and balances and an almost complete disregard for the potential and actual consequences.

We are children with very powerful tools and it's only a matter of time before the injuries we sustain may be fatal.

I think there is a great need for scientific exploration, but also a great need for restraint. Electricity is all well and good but there are alternatives, why we insist on insanely chasing it without regard to the consequences leads me to always come to the same conclusion.

It's all about personal profit.

If we can somehow put that aside, and start working together as a community instead of millions of individuals doing our own thing to make more money, then we stand a chance of carefully discussing the consequences of our actions and actually making some decent choices. Together.

I still want wings though. That would be cool.

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Well said :)

And i shouldnt be such a prude... I would quite like a pair of wings also!

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The future's coming, like it or not. I've been toying with the idea for years, now that it's so cheap it might be finally time to RFID tag myself: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Animal-RFID-Syringe-with-glass-transponder/337611791.html

I know the idea seems counter-intuitive for privacy, but ultimately I'd rather learn about and take control of such tech myself before any scenario arises in which it may be forced on me.

/derail

So a $40 donation gets you seeds? I wonder if they're fertile.

Edit: err the plants are fertile, not the seeds :BANGHEAD2:

Edited by endorfinder

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Damn that's cool! I've fantasised about having glowing plants to light my house for some time now, but I figured the closest I'd ever get to my Pandora-esque dream lounge is a bunch of huge terrariums containing glowing Mycena spp. fungi and some glow worms.

Also, I don't think the GM is inherently bad, it's all about the context, who uses it and why; it's such a huge shame monsanto have destroyed the image of GM - it has some really amazing potential applications. I completely and utterly agree with with bogfrog on the point that we keep developing these elaborate technologies to fix problems stemming from overpopulation, that all these problems could be averted so much more easily if we simply stopped breeding like rabbits and being so greedy for resources and life. The problem is the trap of idealism; I too wish for nothing more than for people to use and breed less, I share the exact same soul-crushing sentiments as bogfrog, but with basic human psychology for the time being what it is, tragically this simply won't happen - we as a race are inherently appallingly greedy and that will only change when things get truly dire. We simply have to come up with ways to reduce our impact with the inevitable way we're heading. Sad but true. GE has the ability to revolutionise our world beyond what any of us can possibly imagine; the possibilities are limitless, we just need to treat it with the utmost respect and diligence.

I guess what gives me hope is knowing that the birth rate in developed countries is dropping quickly, from the WHO report I was reading, in Europe and Japan at least, the native populations are already in decline while as a whole the western world is becoming more and more environmentally conscious, the change has been HUGE in the last 100 years. I guess the problem is developing nations whose population booms are literally reaching plague like proportions, who are hungry for western consumerist lifestyles, and have scant environmental conscience at this time - I believe the actions of developing nations will be the makers or breakers of our and our planets' future.

Humans need to get life to spread off of Earth too - we're possibly the only chance that Earthkind has to survive an eventual cosmic cataclysm (it's practically guaranteed), so we'll need to do something. I'm reading a rather kick-ass book called 'Crescent City Rhapsody' that deals with all of this - it's one of those horizon-expanding books. It gives perspective to a future that appears bleak. :)

Damn, that sounds like it has an incredibly similar theme to a novel I'm part way through writing! Only the context is different.

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