Never to be outshone — literally, in this case — Chinese scientists have one-upped American researchers and their bioluminescent petunias with what they’re calling world’s first multi-colored glowing plants. As the journal Nature reports, this glow-in-the-dark succulent hails from the South China Agricultural University (SCAU) in Guangzhou, where materials researchers have developed a technology that recharges the plants via sunlight and makes them as bright as a night-light and with many of the colors of the rainbow, sometimes even in the same plant. Biologist Shuting Liu, one of the SCAU researchers behind these radiant plants and the first author of a new paper on them in the journal Matter, likened the succulents’ glow to the futuristic bioluminescence seen in a particular science fiction franchise. “Picture the world of Avatar, where glowing plants light up an entire ecosystem,” Liu said in a statement. “We wanted to make that vision possible using materials we already work with in the lab. Imagine glowing trees replacing streetlights.” Last year, the beautiful “Firefly Petunia” from the American startup Light Bio delighted consumers as they rushed to purchase the gene-hacked greenery for just $29 in pre-orders, eventually skyrocketing it onto Time magazine’s best inventions of 2024 list.…
