[HN Gopher] Bioluminescent petunias now available for U.S. market
___________________________________________________________________
Bioluminescent petunias now available for U.S. market
Author : geox
Score : 253 points
Date : 2024-02-14 01:14 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lgrmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lgrmag.com)
| westurner wrote:
| https://www.light.bio/
|
| "An improved pathway for autonomous bioluminescence imaging in
| eukaryotes" (2024)
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-023-02152-y :
|
| > Abstract: _The discovery of the bioluminescence pathway in the
| fungus Neonothopanus nambi enabled engineering of eukaryotes with
| self-sustained luminescence. However, the brightness of
| luminescence in heterologous hosts was limited by performance of
| the native fungal enzymes. Here we report optimized versions of
| the pathway that enhance bioluminescence by one to two orders of
| magnitude in plant, fungal and mammalian hosts, and enable
| longitudinal video-rate imaging._
| carlosjobim wrote:
| This is incredible!
|
| > Can I propagate or breed the Firefly Petunias? Our Firefly
| Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and
| breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively
| for personal use.
|
| Good luck to them with that. If these plants in real life are
| anything like in the videos, they will be grown and sold world
| wide in massive amounts and nobody will give a hoot about some
| patent.
| Crespyl wrote:
| I'm sure if someone opened a commercial scale operation, at
| least in the US, they'd be able to sue, but you're right that
| as soon as it goes worldwide there's no practical way to
| prevent "piracy".
|
| It'll be interesting to see if/how they try to lock it down
| genetically, I think it's possible to make the plants unable to
| produce seeds, but propagation is trickier. Monsanto might have
| some tips for them.
| labster wrote:
| What if someone inserted the gene in a human embryo, but
| didn't pay the royalty? Would the pregnancy have to be
| aborted to protect the IP, or would it be enough to cease and
| desist future distribution of the gene via castration? I mean
| it sounds harsh but the parent did violate intellectual
| property law.
| p1mrx wrote:
| IP schipey, I want my lumen-man!
| hugryhoop wrote:
| Human rights have priority over IP rights.
| echelon wrote:
| There's a photographer suing a tattoo artist over this
| right now. The outcome will be interesting.
| yreg wrote:
| But I'm sure they are not proposing killing off the
| tattooed person.
| labster wrote:
| No, but the verdict could have cost an arm and a leg.
|
| @GP: Yes, but what does the law say about transhuman
| rights? At what point has one added/removed things that
| they're no longer a natural person?
| dekhn wrote:
| the photographer already lost.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| It seems likely that the seeds you get from these plants won't
| produce plants that have the same characteristics as the
| parents.
| alexose wrote:
| What about tissue culture?
| bear141 wrote:
| Cloning is very easy.
| slimsag wrote:
| Patents are a major PITA even in home gardening and small-scale
| nurseries. People have to respect the patents because a lot of
| plant sales are online these days, through Etsy and stuff, and
| the company will sue the ever living shit out of you if they
| find out you are selling them, especially on any meaningful
| scale.
|
| Some of the best tomato seed varieties are often patented, e.g.
| F1 hybrid sungold tomatoes (though reproducing those is also
| annoying because they are a hybrid and people generally want
| seeds.) There are groups[0] which try to make varieties as
| heirlooms (i.e. collect-and-plant) seeds that are copyleft
| licensed[0].
|
| For another interesting example of recent plant developments,
| Norfolk Plant Sciences developed purple tomatoes and recently
| began selling seeds of them. Unlike other purple tomatoes (of
| which there are only a few) these have purple meat inside,
| incorporating a gene from snapdragon flowers, which also keeps
| the tomatoes good longer. They are patented, $20 for just 10
| seeds.
|
| Another small company, Baker Creek's "Purple Galaxy" tomatoes,
| has been suspected of re-selling Norfolk's purple tomato seeds
| and recently stopped selling them due to 'low stock' (suspected
| cease-and-desist) - as a minor controversy in the gardening
| community last week, though allegedly Baker's Creek is a white
| nationalist group so YMMV on whose side you want to take there.
|
| Anyway, plants are fun!
|
| [0] https://osseeds.org/
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Outside the US neither individuals or companies care about
| patents when it comes to these kind of things. Sure, maybe a
| nation's largest plant company will respect the patents, but
| the local plant store won't. And they are almost the whole
| market.
| nkurz wrote:
| > Another small company, Baker Creek's "Purple Galaxy"
| tomatoes, has been suspected of re-selling Norfolk's purple
| tomato seeds and recently stopped selling them due to 'low
| stock' (suspected cease-and-desist)
|
| I'm familiar with this, but it sounds like you might know
| more details. Do you really mean "re-selling"? I'd presumed
| that the accusation was that they were planning to sell a
| cross-bred plant that involved genes from the patented
| variety, but my search attempts on the tomato forums weren't
| very successful. Is there a better "inside scoop" story out
| there to be found or is it all guesswork at this point?
| slimsag wrote:
| Definitely all guesses and assumptions, I do not mean re-
| selling, just cross-bred (possibly accidentally) with a
| patented variety. My source is just comments from random
| gardeners in /r/gardening[0] and I don't have any insider
| info. Normally I would hesitate to play the telephone game
| on such topics, but given the controversy about Baker Creek
| otherwise I don't feel too bad about it in this case.
|
| [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/1akcwog/thi
| s_loo...
| westurner wrote:
| Bioluminescence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence
| Dig1t wrote:
| This is totally awesome. I would love to see these in person.
|
| However, the one thing I really don't like is this:
|
| >Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such,
| propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are
| sold exclusively for personal use.
|
| I think this is wrong, it should not be possible to patent life
| forms.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Luckily it is quite easy to clone plants!
|
| https://www.flowerpatchfarmhouse.com/grow-petunias-from-cutt...
|
| I'm sure they will go after stores that sell them but for the
| home grower, buy one and clone away.
| charliebwrites wrote:
| On the other hand "Pirating bioluminescent flowers" sounds
| metal as hell
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Technically (in the US) it's only possible to patent plants and
| I think legally yeasts are considered plants.
|
| This is "to promote progress in the science and useful art of
| agronomy".
|
| Not defending it, just stating what the law is.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I initially reacted to it negatively, but on thinking about
| it I realize that glowing plants are about as natural as
| polyethylene factories, so I get the logic behind the
| patentability, and can even see some benefits. Hopefully the
| patent will reduce the total number of these abominations
| grown.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Well where on that spectrum does honeycrisp apple or Maui
| gold pineapple belong?
| whatshisface wrote:
| Somewhere in the middle. Honeycrisp apples are a
| combination of naturally occurring genes, but they are
| propagated clonally and in fact cannot reproduce true to
| themselves. They'd never have arisen without careful
| cultivation, and (this part is important) another group
| crossing the same original cultivars as the developers of
| the honeycrisp used wouldn't get the same apple. So it's
| a combination that is unique to its inventors, rather
| than a patent on something anybody could do - and nobody
| will infringe by accident.
|
| An example of a bad patent would be a patent on a process
| anybody trying to solve the problem would come up with -
| that's a needless restraint on trade - and an example of
| a truly horrible patent would be one on a human gene.
| Those existed until 2013, when the supreme court finally
| ruled against them.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Seems arbitrary and liable to abuse due to the patent
| office gonna call it obvious to deny you the patent
| because the officer's friend has a similar patent.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The rule against a trivial invention already exists, but
| as you suggest, interpretation creates a huge amount of
| criticism for the patent system.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| What you have just said about the Honeycrisp apple is
| true about _all_ apples. That 's how apple varieties have
| been created since the dawn of time. There's nothing
| special about Honeycrisp - they basically tried planting
| loads of seeds after crossing various trees with each
| other, did a massive taste testing and picked the
| resulting tree that won the lottery. Then that single
| tree was propagated by cuttings to make every single
| Honeycrisp apple tree in existence. But that's how all
| apple varieties are made.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Wasn't honeycrisp made with irradiated soil?
| mnw21cam wrote:
| That's not mentioned in
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycrisp or anywhere else
| I can find.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| You could also argue that as honeycrisp were created by
| randomly crossing other varieties, and then picking the
| one appple with the most desireable qualities out of
| hundreds, this is not really patent-worthy as nothing was
| designed by the breeder.
|
| The glowing petunias on the other hand were a proper
| invention, inserting a working, novel biochemical pathway
| into a plant is quite hard.
| sampo wrote:
| > Honeycrisp apples are a combination of naturally
| occurring genes, but they are propagated clonally and in
| fact cannot reproduce true to themselves.
|
| _All_ apple cultivars are like that.
|
| https://theconversation.com/how-a-few-good-apples-
| spawned-to...
| nottorp wrote:
| Order one glowing petunia.
|
| Plant a cutting in the neighbor's yard.
|
| Neighbor goes to jail.
|
| Profit!
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I think this is wrong, it should not be possible to patent
| life forms.
|
| Consider that if they couldn't protect their work, they never
| would have invested the money into making these and offering
| them for sale to begin with.
|
| I understand why some might find it unpleasant, but the fact
| that these exist at all is a testament to why such protections
| are available.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| It's not, though. There is a perfectly viable market of seeds
| and such for non-biolumenescent plants. You can, in fact,
| plant watermelon seeds and use the seeds in the resulting
| watermelon to plant more watermelon plants. Crazy.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > There is a perfectly viable market of seeds and such for
| non-biolumenescent plants.
|
| I don't understand what you're trying to argue, but the
| patent laws aren't designed to patent generic, pre-existing
| plants like generic watermelon.
| pests wrote:
| How is that crazy? That's how plants work.
|
| This is not a natural plant though.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| That's not really true for most popular high-performance
| varieties, most are hybrids and growing them from the
| harvested seed will lose the characteristics. That's why
| most commercial farmers buy from a supplier every year
| instead of saving seeds, and that's the reason for a viable
| market.
| ryathal wrote:
| Commercial farmers also sign agreements to not plant
| harvested seeds. Monsanto has successfully sued several
| farmers for not complying with that contract.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Consider that if they couldn't protect their work, they
| never would have invested the money into making these and
| offering them for sale to begin with.
|
| That's a massive assumption. Plenty of other plants are sold
| every single day that aren't patented. There's zero reason to
| assume that they couldn't make a very nice profit on these
| plants without a patent. Just like every single florist in
| the country does.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Those plants probably had nowhere near the R&D costs of the
| glowing petunias
| shellfishgene wrote:
| I think they would lose nonethless, because they are
| specialized on genetic modification, and if there was no
| patent protection any experienced mass grower of petunias
| could undercut them by buying a single plant, cloning it,
| and growing it in large numbers.
| autoexec wrote:
| Anyone selling petunias last year could have also
| undercut the next guy selling petunias because they were
| already selling basically identical products, no cloning
| step needed, but somehow multiple florists manage to
| exist and be profitable.
| samus wrote:
| For this plant maybe, as they are pretty much a frivolity.
| Actual cash crops are another story.
|
| Edit: it also seems that nontrivial engineering work was
| required to improve bioluminescence. It was not as simple as
| straightforwardly splicing in a few genes from a mushroom.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| From the nature article linked above: "When asked whether Light
| Bio is worried about plant lovers sharing cuttings of the
| petunia with friends, Sarkisyan says that although the firm
| owns patents for the technology, it doesn't plan to crack down
| aggressively on the behaviour. "The most positive way of
| dealing with it is to come up with new, better products," he
| says."
| stubish wrote:
| This is how rose breeders stay in business. They get the rights
| to profit off their work, time limited rights over the life
| form they created. Where it gets messy is people copyrighting
| stuff they didn't develop or breed, just what they happened to
| discover and analyze first.
| zokier wrote:
| Have you heard about Monsanto?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Legal_affairs
|
| Apparently plants have been patented already for nearly a
| century, I didn't know that: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-
| waves/2023/august/expanded-in...
|
| But yes, its controversial, and for good reason. But so is most
| of IP law to some degree.
| sampo wrote:
| > it should not be possible to patent life forms
|
| If you count plant patents as patents, then almost all
| commercially used asexually propagated plant cultivars are
| patented.
|
| https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/apply/plant-patent
| bloopernova wrote:
| These plants remind me of the Cheshires from the book "The Windup
| Girl". Despite being scientifically impossible, the Cheshires
| illustrate unforeseen consequences very well. They are
| genetically engineered cats that can blend exceptionally well
| into their surroundings, like an octopus. They were made as party
| favours for an young girl's birthday party, but escaped and out-
| bred/out-hunted domestic cats to become dominant across the
| world.
|
| There's a great critique of the lack of scientific rigour in
| Paolo Bacigalupi's novel, well worth a read if you like poor
| science being excoriated:
|
| https://www.nyrsf.com/2015/10/eric-schaller-the-problem-with...
| fbdab103 wrote:
| Did himself no favors if the leading argument was that "20
| years is too fast to replace a species." Like, fine? Call it a
| hundred and move onto a more damning critique. Only skimmed the
| rest, but several of them also seem to be making a lot of some
| off-hand flavor text.
|
| Is it perfect? No, but I enjoyed the novel quite a bit.
| boxed wrote:
| As I remember it in the book, the genes were crispr-driven.
| Meaning ALL offspring got the new genes. So a modified cat
| having any offspring with a non-modified cat got these genes.
| So it's not really out-competing that determines the spread
| speed, it's outcompeting AND any and all interbreeding.
| ildjarn wrote:
| I don't look for scientific rigour in sci fi myself.
| Angostura wrote:
| And yet it can be fun, if you find it.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| There's a whole subgenre of maximally scientifically
| rigorous sci-fi, it's great fun.
| arethuza wrote:
| Sounds interesting, do you have some recommendations?
| salad-tycoon wrote:
| The Martian, is the most accessible and interesting "hard
| sci fi" I've read. The RC Bray narrated version is
| excellent (and I think delisted). Otherwise, that's your
| search term. I'm interested in more recommendations too
| some times the story is lacking in this genre.
|
| Side note: very interesting writing process for the
| Martian, as I remember it, he developed it chapter by
| chapter with his readers who would critique it on his
| blog. Later books were not as good (after he was famous)
| but project Hail Mary was a turn around.
| arethuza wrote:
| But doesn't The Martian have a well-known scientific
| inaccuracy around the actual physical effects of winds on
| Mars - which is kind of vital to the plot?
|
| NB I really like The Martian (and like SF in general).
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Yes. The atmosphere is completely wrong. Ignore that and
| the rest is pretty good.
|
| As for recommendations, I'd say loads of the books by
| Arthur C. Clarke. Try "A fall of moondust".
| rini17 wrote:
| I was like...mkay the wind was one time plot device.
| Bigger issue is that he seemed to grow potatoes inside
| with no mention of lighting at all? That was major
| omission for me, grow lights require plenty of energy and
| thus waste heat.
| arethuza wrote:
| Sunlight on Mars is about 40% of what it is on Earth -
| and given that potatoes seem to grow quite well in the
| less sunny parts of this planet (such as here in
| Scotland) then I'm willing to not get too critical on
| that particular point.
| IntrepidWorm wrote:
| More damning would be the perchlorates found in Martian
| soil, toxic to most Earth-plants, not to mention Earth-
| humans.
| i3oi3 wrote:
| Dragons Egg by Robert Forward had always been one of my
| favorites. Asks the question "what would like be like if
| it evolved on a neutron star," and has 20 pages of his
| notes on working out the physics at the end of the book.
| arethuza wrote:
| I remember one wit on Usenet saying that the strangest
| aliens ever portrayed in science fiction were the people
| in Robert Forward books....
|
| Certainly the physics in the couple books of his I read
| was interesting but the writing left a lot to be desired.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| I read Dragon's Egg and the sequel, Starquake, as a
| teenager. I remembered them being deeply engrossing.
|
| I revisited the first one 20-ish years later in an
| attempt to get my partner interested. I only made it a
| few chapters before I decided to abandon the attempt.
| There are some really good parts (the science stuff), but
| the way the human characters' interactions were described
| I just could not get past.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I remember that book; I think someone on HN suggested it when I
| asked for "biopunk" recommendations. It's definitely less bio
| than "Change Agent" by Daniel Suarez (which incidentally, IIRC,
| had more of genetically engineered animals for kids too) - but
| what I remember most about "The Windup Girl" is _spring power_.
| The book made me interested in mechanical energy storage and
| mechanical energy-based systems in general.
| bitcurious wrote:
| You might enjoy reading about the spring drive watch
| movements Seiko makes.
| dvh wrote:
| Meanwhile in real world we go completely opposite direction -
| degenerate munchkin cats
| nothercastle wrote:
| The best kind of cat is mentally disabled. Just sits purrs
| and chases random things
| IntrepidWorm wrote:
| im not sure I want a lithe hunter stalking through my house,
| marking every surface and attacking everything that breathes.
| I much prefer my dopey dander machines that sleep on my
| chest, flop around on the ground chasing the pocket lint they
| dug out of my trashcan, and superhero-leaping off their tree
| onto the couch to wake the other one with a screech.
|
| If I owned a farm and needed a ratter, I'd likely feel
| different.
| jseip wrote:
| Plant nerd here. Pre-ordered one of these and was not impressed.
| Checkout flow loses a step and shipping is almost as much as the
| cost of a pre-order.
| slimsag wrote:
| I'm confused, you got one already and didn't like it? or you
| just didn't like ordering it?
| pests wrote:
| They dont ship until spring so he is only complaining about
| the checkout flow.
| UberFly wrote:
| The photo of the petunias in the article remind me of photos
| people take of their various tritium devices. It's always a long
| exposure to make it much more impressive than it actually is.
| Smoosh wrote:
| It's the same with ocean bioluminescence. Your eyes adapt to
| the dark and see it better than it looks in a normal
| photograph, but most photographs are "enhanced" as you say with
| long exposure times and/or increased colour saturation.
| dylan604 wrote:
| They have a video of it with people moving. I only saw it
| scrolling by without watching the video closely though. It does
| have the feel of some black light being used was my first
| thought.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Well it's clear in this video that there is some mild
| foreground light. But also the shot with the laptop is
| interesting because laptop screens usually don't go super
| dim, relatively speaking, and you're still seeing a clear
| exposure of the plant glow and the laptop screen. They're
| quite a bit dimmer than the laptop screen but if they were
| extremely dim the laptop screen would be noticeably
| overexposed.
|
| That said I can't get a clear read on it due to the
| foreground light.
|
| https://youtu.be/5SfkWdkoKxM?si=X92failgjPMzIeFY
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Well they themselves mention up to 100x enhancement in original
| bio luminescence. When you start with something absolutely
| invisible to naked eye in pitch black even after some time,
| 100x ain't that much.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| A nit, but:
|
| > _something absolutely invisible to naked eye in pitch black
| even after some time_
|
| Is it invisible, though? If it were, how would we even find
| out it's bioluminescent? And then, IIRC visual receptors in
| our eyes are sensitive to single-photon events. It takes a
| bit more for us to _consciously_ perceive light, but not
| _that_ much more[0].
|
| Also, 100x enhancement is 20dB increase, which isn't little.
|
| --
|
| [0] - https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_ph
| oton....
| pvaldes wrote:
| The main problem is how to stop genetic contamination from
| pollen. Petunias are from tomato family. As far as I know,
| there is not cross pollination between both species, but maybe
| with the next species tried it could be. Or jump to native
| Solanaceae. Nobody wants this in their salad.
|
| If there is something that terrifies me more than the capacity
| of Solanaceae to make sophisticated, evil poisons is to
| weaponize them even more with the superpower of fungus genes.
| The new pollen allergies could rank between "nothing to see
| here" and "next terrible problem".
| malfist wrote:
| That is not how plant breeding works. You cannot cross a
| tomato and a petunia.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > You cannot cross a tomato and a petunia.
|
| As I said previously.
|
| But if you use this product in an area with native
| Petunioideae (like for example USA), any decent consultant
| would suggest assure that this pollen will not contaminate
| wild populations because you are messing with 1) Genetics
| 2) conservation of nature 3) Pollinators, and there are a
| few bobby traps lying in your path
|
| We could discover too late that the same gen codify for
| light and a 'surprise cadeau' that will accumulate toxins
| in the plant for example. Or that this changes the
| structure of pollinators in an undesirable way because they
| promote the contaminated genetics.
| Loughla wrote:
| That isn't how genetics and plant breeding works? As an
| example; Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and orangutans are all in the
| same family.
|
| More likely would be that these cross-pollinate with other
| petunias in someone's garden. Which is almost entirely not a
| problem, unless there is something about these genes that
| cause the plants to just be massively invasive and spreading.
|
| But they're annuals with seeds that do not travel well, so
| mitigation of that issue should be relatively simple, even if
| it does exist.
| Reubachi wrote:
| This is a bit misleading. I have several photos of my >2 years
| old tritium/phosphate activated accessories taken in twilight
| hours, or just after that, in which the luminescence is very
| clearly separate from any background light.(and directly
| analagous to the brightness level in real life. )
|
| Perhaps you've seen in real life some that are much
| older/decayed? I have a bunch that I need to replace in
| sights/flashights due to this reason, they're just much dimmer
| than originally advertised.
|
| (anyways, these flowers aren't phosphorous tubes excited by
| radioactive decay/emission so there's no way they will be as
| full spectrum'd/constant as the tritium vials I just
| described.)
| epiccoleman wrote:
| I'm basically sold, and would have already ordered, but am I
| understanding correctly that what's for sale on their site is...
| one flower for $29? I could easily see myself dropping some money
| to have a glow-in-the-dark-garden, but it seems like at that
| price, getting any kind of "coverage" would be cost prohibitive.
|
| Yes, yes, they can be propagated, but that's going to take a few
| plants if I'm to have enough to have more than a few odd glowing
| plants here and there.
|
| Either way, this is super cool.
| jimmytucson wrote:
| $29 plus $24 shipping, so $53 for one flower.
| slimsag wrote:
| Not quite, you can get 3 for $107 because it applies some
| automatic discount and shipping is not a linear cost.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I had free petunia plants last year in the pots the previous
| years petunias grew. No, these were not the same plants as
| they are annuals that got pulled in the fall. Never thought
| about them seeding themselves like that. Maybe that $53 plant
| can do the same thing so you get a second year out of it
| essentially halving the cost???
|
| We love us some volunteers
| Angostura wrote:
| I very much doubt that these will breed true from seed
| tuumi wrote:
| You could just root some cutting and put under a grow light
| and plant in the spring.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Isn't that the very definition of propagating the line
| which is protected via patent? I too doubt these would
| grow from a seed, but at least growing a plant from a
| seed is not patentable regardless of what Monsanto
| thinks.
| jijijijij wrote:
| I doubt propagation is enforceable either. They mentioned
| 'breeding' too, so they seem to have the same
| understanding as Monsanto.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's really only enforceable if you attempt to make money
| from it or even just distribute it as your own to the
| point they find out about you. If you do anything to
| share the new plants that prevents them from making
| money, you'll be "guilty". If you do it just to fill in
| your backyard, they'll never find out about you.
| slimsag wrote:
| It's not 'one flower' - it's one petunia plant. They grow 6-12
| inches tall, and 1-4ft wide, with multiple flowers. It's like a
| small sprawly bush. From the FAQ:
|
| > The Firefly Petunia is shipped as a small plant rooted in a
| 4" pot. As flowers tend to suffer in shipment, the petunia will
| arrive with developing buds. It may contain a few newly opened
| flowers. With good growing conditions, it will quickly attain
| about 8 to 10 inches in size with abundant white flowers.
| epiccoleman wrote:
| Ah, ok, that's what I was wondering about. I was picturing
| something much smaller. That seems a lot more reasonable -
| still expensive for a single plant, but we are talking about
| something pretty unique.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| It's a pretty reasonable price for a specialty plant.
| Plants are cheaper at places like Home Depot but those
| plants are also sick and bring bugs in to your house that
| can infect your other house plants.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| How easy would it be to propagate into multiple plants?
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| Just wait until you learn about tulips! I never understood
| tulip mania until my wife started planting them.
|
| Tulips are annuals, so they only are expected to grow one
| season. You often order the bulbs in summer and they're
| delivered in fall, and then planted in early winter before the
| ground gets too cold. They're often less than a dollar per
| bulb, but if you've ever seen a nice arrangement, hundreds of
| tulips is not all that much.
|
| The first year my wife told me she was spending ~$300 on tulips
| I thought she was crazy. That spring when I saw what they
| looked like I okayed doubling the order for the next year. It's
| really a delight to see spring announced by your yard exploding
| in beautiful flowers.
| jerrysievert wrote:
| I have some good news for you! While tulips do not reliably
| come back every year, sometimes skipping a year, they are
| actually perennials.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| I have even better news. They multiply too!
| dekhn wrote:
| tulips aren't annuals where I live in California (Bay Area).
| They come up in the same place year after year and even
| spread a little.
| smokel wrote:
| Wait until you learn that some collectors of Galanthus
| (Snowdrops) have paid PS1850 (~$2300) for one bulb of a new
| variety.
|
| To most, they are simply the same green and white plants, but
| to some, they are quite the obsession.
|
| [1] https://www.gardensillustrated.com/news/snowdrop-bulb-
| sells-...
| tuumi wrote:
| I'm going to buy one of these and take cuttings and root them.
| I have a indoor growing area so I could just keep taking
| cuttings and making a ton of plants. I'm sure this violates
| their TOS though.
| jdhzzz wrote:
| From the site:
|
| Can I propagate or breed the Firefly Petunias? Our Firefly
| Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation
| and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold
| exclusively for personal use.
|
| Propagation IS permitted as long as it's for personal use so
| your scenario is fine. Selling a propagated plant to your
| neighbor (or anyone else) violates the law.
| jijijijij wrote:
| > Propagation IS permitted as long as it's for personal use
| so your scenario is fine.
|
| How do you come to this conclusion from the FAQ answer
| above?
| Reubachi wrote:
| Easy; "Our Firefly Petunias are PROTECTED UNDER PATENT,
| and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted.
| These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use."
|
| Patent protection is soley for protection from commercial
| use by non patent holders. This is why they put in the
| last line.
|
| Patent protection does not stop me from building an
| equivalent of any item protected by patent. I cannot sell
| it commercially.
| roarcher wrote:
| > Patent protection does not stop me from building an
| equivalent of any item protected by patent.
|
| Legally it does, at least in the United States. That
| said, I doubt this company will search your backyard in
| the middle of the night to make sure you don't have more
| glowing petunias than you ordered from their website.
| c22 wrote:
| There's a discount at 3 plants and free shipping at 10.
| hi_hi wrote:
| This is cool and all, but "Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied
| With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn't Stop To Think If They
| Should"
|
| I'm assuming these things are seedless, so they won't start
| popping up and spreading naturally?
| bongodongobob wrote:
| So what if they did? We cross breed flowers all the time.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| This isn't cross breeding two flowers, it is plugging genes
| from a mushroom into a flower. I can understand using GMOs to
| grow more food to prevent starvation and malnutrition, but
| this is messing with another living organism for pure
| aesthetic purposes. It feels different.
| roughly wrote:
| Buddy we turned wolves into frenchies, we well and truly
| crossed the line and burned the bridge on fucking with
| other species for aesthetics before any of us were born.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| doesn't mean we have to keep doing it. Bulldogs suffer
| terrible health problems because of this bullshit
| attitude.
| standardly wrote:
| Do you think the petunias will suffer with health
| problems?
| animal_spirits wrote:
| That's not something I'm necessarily concerned about. My
| personal concern is the normalization of gene editing for
| aesthetic purposes spreading to other organisms, and dogs
| are a perfect example. Humans have been artificially
| selecting flowers for specific aesthetic purposes for
| centuries: Fine. Humans have been artificially selecting
| dogs for specific aesthetic purposes for centuries: Not
| fine. Humans begin gene editing flowers for aesthetic
| purposes: Fine... What happens next? I don't think that
| this implies humans are definitely going to start using
| gene editing dogs for specific aesthetic purposes, but
| who knows? We should be having these dialogues so that we
| don't get caught up in this before the practice becomes
| normalized. With great power comes great responsibility,
| as Uncle Ben says.
| yagibear wrote:
| Nature has a more detailed article
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00383-3?s=08
| describing why they chose petunias, and propagation via cuttings.
| mholt wrote:
| Kinda awkward, as I was curious to learn more about this plant I
| searched their website (light.bio) and it wouldn't load for me
| after multiple attempts. Just a blank page.
|
| So I opened the dev tools and found the HTTP response of 504. Oh!
| Their site is down, it's not just me.
|
| Then I looked at the response headers. Server:
| Caddy
|
| *skull emoji*
|
| (Of course, after my initial heart-sink, I realized that this
| means their backend is down, and Caddy is serving up the response
| just fine. Phew.)
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I see you're the author of Caddy, cool! Sometimes in Big Tech,
| this is a way to realize that some backend service is having
| issues because a proxy in front of the service is still
| returning a response. It's a rare failure case at most
| companies though.
| jhardy54 wrote:
| Isn't that what the previous comment said? I don't think HTTP
| 504 is specific to Big Tech.
| tyre wrote:
| Explaining 504s to the author of Caddy is a move, to be sure.
| mholt wrote:
| I don't mind; my initial gut reaction forgot what the 504
| was about. It's also helpful to other readers not as
| familiar with the topic! :)
| havaloc wrote:
| Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of
| the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people
| have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias
| had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the
| Universe than we do now.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Petunias are annuals, so you will have to fork over $29 per year
| per plant. There's probably no incentive for them to create a
| bioluminescent perennial.
| frozenport wrote:
| lol. There exist bioluminescent aquarium fish that live for
| several years. Clearly the market will provide the plant the
| customer wants.
| po wrote:
| AFAIK, there are no bioluminescent fish available on the
| market... There are GloFish (https://www.glofish.com) but
| they only glow when displayed under a UV light.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I know there are laws about importing foreign plants which
| might set seed and grow locally, becoming invasive. A modified
| plant that had any chance of establishing itself would probably
| face similar obstacles. I believe roundup-ready corn was
| sterile and, of course, an annual.
| justrealist wrote:
| It's only annual if you plant it outside.
| whyenot wrote:
| Petunias are perennials. They are not annuals. They are often
| grown as annuals because they are native to the subtropics and
| frost sensitive. You can grow them for several years as either
| a houseplant or outdoors if you can provide the climate
| conditions that the plants need.
| vinnymac wrote:
| You can actually dig up plants before the first frost and
| winter them in the house. I do this for a variety of them.
|
| Just make sure to trim away anything that'll track in bugs /
| disease, and keep them in a temperate climate.
| web007 wrote:
| The successful version of
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-pla...
|
| This looks pretty cool, let's see how it goes!
| thorum wrote:
| So how many of these would you need to match the brightness of a
| lightbulb?
| userbinator wrote:
| How many {descriptor for a category of people} does it take to
| plant enough petunias to replace a lightbulb?
| dools wrote:
| You know I woke up this morning thinking "why the hell hasn't
| anyone developed a bioluminescant petunia?!" then I saw this on
| HN!
| bobim wrote:
| Can't stop fearing that messing with the living like that is
| going to badly backfire at some point. The sad aspect is that
| it's solely for frivolous reasons and profit. But damn, these
| petunias are cool.
| Maxion wrote:
| Do note that humans have messed around with plants for a long
| time and that has caused loads of issues from loss of
| biodiversity, invasive species and what not. I don't think
| direct genetic manipulation of plants will have any worse
| effects than what we already see.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Genes are mutated randomly by nature, so the code is there to
| be changed and the menu of options is the same for nature and
| humans. Indirect methods have been used for centuries, so this
| is more a matter of degree.
|
| Of course there are dangers in everything, but fiddling with
| the code of life probably seems more scary than it actually is.
| hoseja wrote:
| Not messing with it will lead to decay. Just strive to be
| antifragile and stop reading so much doomer scifi.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Yes, messing with things should be done carefully. But one
| shouldn't forget how much bad things are happening every day:
|
| - first of all, the continuous threat to Eco-systems from
| invasive species constantly spread around the globe by
| carelessness.
|
| - one especially bad example is the breeding of pets which are
| basically sick by design. A lot of dog races are a prototypical
| example, but also cats and especially many fish breeds.
|
| So yes, genetically modified plants are a bit frivolous, but
| one should push more to fight against the things listed above,
| happening so routinely.
| croes wrote:
| >But one shouldn't forget how much bad things are happening
| every day.
|
| That's like saying, stab him because is already shot.
|
| The straw that broke the camel's back.
| solarpunk wrote:
| Would this fuck with bees/pollinators?
| autoexec wrote:
| Bees are active in the afternoons when it's bright out and
| these flowers shouldn't look much different from any other. I'd
| be more worried about them sexually confusing fireflies at
| dusk.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Slightly worried about moths which are extremely important.
| However these probably have nowhere near the effect of the
| insane amount of artificial light we pump into the night sky
| untoxicness wrote:
| Reminds me of the "lumiroses" from Margaret Atwood's dystopian
| MaddAddam trilogy. Although the roses are not integral to the
| books, the general theme of the series is taking bioengineering
| one step too far.
| wizardforhire wrote:
| Pre-order here for $29
|
| https://light.bio/
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| This looks like some kind of joke from the Simpsons.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Might make nice pathway edging for lighting the way at nighttime.
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| Insects might like it too.
| schnitzelstoat wrote:
| It's a shame the backwards anti-GM laws we have in the EU mean we
| won't be able to have these here.
| herbst wrote:
| Or glad that potentially harmful plants for our environment are
| not easily imported and sold.
|
| As long nobody gives a fuck which flowers they buy this year to
| further kill the local ecosystem I am all for limitations.
|
| Source: I live rather remote in the Alps and nature here is
| nothing like it was 100 years ago. Which is not necessarily
| bad, except most 'pests' seem to be popular garden plants.
| patates wrote:
| I don't care too much for what's native and what's not
| (perhaps partly because being an immigrant myself hehe) but
| the real disturbing plants are the ones who out-compete
| multiple species and add rather large points of failure by
| ridding diversity.
|
| While imagining glowing forests is cool, in the fight against
| sweeping diseases, diversity is king.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Non-native plants are the ones that out-compete the local
| species.
|
| It's daft to apply human politics to _plants_.
| yreg wrote:
| > Non-native plants are the ones that out-compete the
| local species.
|
| Not automatically. Only the ones who survive in the wild
| and spread (by definition).
| patates wrote:
| > It's daft to apply human politics to plants.
|
| It was just a joke.
|
| > Non-native plants are the ones that out-compete the
| local species.
|
| Usually, but not always. Some non-native species may
| increase diversity and some native species can turn
| invasive when the environment changes (usually due to the
| global warming).
| boxed wrote:
| That's actually changing now. But probably only for agriculture
| and medicine for now. Which is honestly reasonable.
| teen wrote:
| No shipping to Hawaii :(
| theultdev wrote:
| > Firefly Petunia x 9 $261.00
|
| > Free Shipping available for orders from $263.01
|
| You bastards. Fine, one more.
| theyeenzbeanz wrote:
| Is this plant cat safe? Can't seem to find that info
| bregma wrote:
| We can use this gene when we finally clone T. rex from the blood
| of a mosquito trapped in amber. It will no longer be the dark and
| ominous lurking horror of book and film that frightens children
| and adults alike. No, it will be the brightly glowing lurking
| horror that just kinda brings a smile to your face and can be the
| source of merch like children's night lights, safety-oriented
| Hallowe'en costumes, and all-night dance party fashions.
|
| If we bred it into domestic dogs it would make nighttime walkies
| safer and midnight trips to the bathroom less stumblesome.
| tyleo wrote:
| I'd put money down for a T. Cup Rex. Especially if it got along
| with my cats.
| bregma wrote:
| Those tiny arms would be sooo cute.
| username135 wrote:
| Black cats have entered the chat
| Quixotica1 wrote:
| Shut up and take my money
| vinnymac wrote:
| I wonder how this could affect fireflies. Would the glow distract
| them in any way?
| nemo44x wrote:
| Last time I did petunias I planted about 50 of them in the front
| and back beds. That would cost well over $1600 for the plants
| alone so I think I'll wait until this has been scaled.
| yladiz wrote:
| One step closer to Chroma Green from the game Stray.
| nothercastle wrote:
| Anyone grow any yet I want to know what they actually look like.
| At 50$ a seed packet im a little cautious
| mbil wrote:
| Is it $50 for the seed packet or the actual plant?
| ct0 wrote:
| 29 for the product, 24 for shipping the product
| cachecrab wrote:
| It's for the actual plant. This is from the FAQ (taken from
| another comment):
|
| > The Firefly Petunia is shipped as a small plant rooted in a
| 4" pot. As flowers tend to suffer in shipment, the petunia
| will arrive with developing buds. It may contain a few newly
| opened flowers. With good growing conditions, it will quickly
| attain about 8 to 10 inches in size with abundant white
| flowers.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Reminds of when the "Fire Flowers" in Better off Ted:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5rAOitj5_8
|
| "Whoah! What was that? Uhh...fire squirrel"
| jijijijij wrote:
| > Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such,
| propagation and breeding are not permitted.
|
| Lol, what a disgrace. Bees, are you listening? The man said no!
|
| I _really_ want to pirate this plant now. Feels like an
| obligation to the general aesthetics of life and the wider _how_
| of things.
| pvaldes wrote:
| This is a standard message on flower novelties. In the 99% of
| the times, it must be taken as "commercial propagation and
| breeding" is not permitted unless you pay us royalties and we
| have a commercial deal, but each company is different.
|
| I wonder what would be the color of this flowers, probably pure
| white, so by day would be indistinguishable from the other.
| standardly wrote:
| I remember an early startup, from like 15 years ago, wanting to
| bring bioluminescent street lamps to market. I wonder what has
| happened in this space since then.
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