GlowingPlant

Actually there are several ideas we have for how to reduce light pollution. The most promising is to only express light in the bottom of the plant's leaf, so it's only reflected down.

There are also ways to turn the light on and off using different promoters. The most fun is one which responds to touch just like in avatar!

Maybe :)

Initially, not very bright. We are aiming for a plant which glows like glow in the dark paint. Longer term however when we really get into the metabolic engineering I think a plant could be as bright as a bulb... the question is how big a plant we need. I'd hope for a Christmas tree sized plant to be able to replace a 100 watt bulb.

I think this could be one of the most trans-formative applications of the technology. Lighting has been shown to have many benefits to reducing crime and improving quality of life and there are large parts of the world which lack night lighting (just look at a photo of Africa at night). Tropical countries, with ample sunlight and equal day night lengths, are ideally suited for this technology so I think it could be something which finds acceptance there before more developed nations.

We haven't made it yet, the kickstarter campaign is to raise funds to do so. Researchers at SUNY were able to make a plant which visibly glowed after you were a few minutes in a dark room and we are building on that work. We go into detail on the techniques we are using to do that here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit/posts/468578

For inspiration on how bright bioluminescence can go we look to the 2010 Cambridge iGem team who were able to read books from their glowy bacteria, more information here: http://2010.igem.org/Team:Cambridge