I know that we have seen our fair share of weird ideas appear on Kickstarter before, but seriously – a Glowing Plant? Isn’t this kind of strange science supposed to be relegated to the realm of witch doctors and shamans? The Glowing Plant would basically do according to its name, where this project is meant to use synthetic biology in an attempt to create plants which are capable of glowing in the dark. No idea on what kind of purpose other than cosmetic ones that such a plant would serve in the jungle, but who knows? Someone might stumble upon an Eureka! moment.
The Glowing Plant can be created via three main steps – design, print and transform. Designing the DNA sequences is no mean feat even with the Genome Compiler, while printing the DNA at Cambrian Genomics would complete the second step, with the final step, the transformation phase, will see DNA transformed into the target plant in the Glowing Plant lab. Sounds cool, but hopefully this kind of science will not spill over to cash crops such as wheat, corn and soy – as we can never quite tell the results on the human health condition after consumption. Who knows, you might get glow in the dark hair? [Kickstarter Page]
Filed in . Read more about Kickstarter.