Hodge said he became interested in plants after reading an article about using bioluminescent plants instead of street lights to combat light pollution. A biologist who studies how day and night affect life, he worries that city lights and computer screens are disrupting natural cycles.
“I couldn’t give up on being the first person to own this product,” says Hodge. “When you turn off the lights, the light is really beautiful and it feels like you’re witnessing a scene from a futuristic sci-fi movie!”
You'll be tempted to try again.
From the archive
It's not clear whether rows of glowing plants can ever replace streetlights, but there's no doubt that light pollution is on the rise. Artificial light emissions on Earth increased by approximately 50% between 1992 and 2017, with increases of up to 400% in some regions. This is what Shel Evergreen explains in her story about switching to bright LED street lights.
It took time for scientists to figure out how to make plants glow brightly enough to attract consumers' attention. In 2016, I saw a failed Kickstarter that promised glow-in-the-dark roses but never materialized.
another thing
Cassandra Willyard provides an update on the case of Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old woman who feels “fantastic” two weeks after her surgeon donated a kidney from a genetically modified pig. This is the latest in a series of extraordinary animal-to-human organ transplants, a technique known as xenotransplantation, that could end organ shortages.
on the web
Taiwan's government is considering measures to ease restrictions on the use of IVF. The country has a very low birth rate but has banned surrogacy, limiting the options of male couples. A Taiwanese couple spent $160,000 to have a child in the United States. (CNN)
Appalachian communities have begun receiving settlements from synthetic opioid manufacturers like Johnson & Johnson, which, along with other drug suppliers, will pay out $50 billion over several years. But funds spread across thousands of jurisdictions are “paltry compared to the scale of the problem.” (Wall Street Journal)
A startup called Climax Foods claims to have used artificial intelligence to create a vegan cheese that tastes “smooth, rich, and silky,” according to author Andrew Rosenblum. He explains the results of his taste testing in the new “Build” issue. MIT Technology Review. But one Rosenblum expert warned that computer-generated cheese is “significantly” overrated.
AI hype continued in medicine this week when a startup claimed to have used “generative AI” to quickly discover a new version of CRISPR, a powerful gene-editing tool. But new gene-editing technologies won't overcome a major hurdle: how to get these molecules to where they're needed in a patient's body. (New York Times).