The Way of Alternative Enlightenment in the Future with Luminous Bacteria: Biological Light Bulb. In the future, a different and alternative lighting method can be added to the lighting methods offered by technologies such as fluorescent, halogen, neon and LED. Three U.S. college students presented a biological bulb using luminous bacteria in a competition initiated by Popular Science.
Today, when plants that can glow by using glowing bacteria have been developed, breakthroughs have also started to be seen in the field of biological lamps.
Three students from the University of Wisconsin, USA, made it to the finals in the #CrowdGrant Challenge competition, where the science and technology projects of Popular Science magazine competed. The project is a biological lamp created using different types of microorganisms.
Michael Zaiken, a biochemistry student involved in the 'Biobulb' project, said: “The biobulb actually consists of a space kept in a jar… It is diverse and contains many microorganisms. "Each organism plays an important role in the formation of nutrients that other organisms need to survive," he said.
The main input of the 'bag' representing the biological lamp is the genetically modified Escherichia coli bacteria. These bacteria, which live in the intestines of humans and other animals, do not normally glow in the dark. However, Zaiken and other members of her team, Alexandra Cohn and AnaElise Beckman, plan to manipulate the genetics of bacteria to make them look like jellyfish, fireflies, squid or any other glowing creature.
LIGHT WITHOUT ELECTRICITY
Zaiken et al won't just use E.coli for the biolamp to provide enough light.
In addition to E.Coli, bacteria that will produce food using light and destroy waste will be present in the environment where the biological lamp is formed. This cycle will create a 'recharge' mechanism that will keep the biolamp glowing for days, perhaps months.
The biggest challenge of Zaiken et al. is to ensure that genetically modified E.coli bacteria do not lose their bioluminescence (light-scattering) codes during their reproduction. Zaiken stated that 'they are working on a few methods that they hope will be successful in order to make the codes permanent'.
Zaiken said that in addition to presenting a 'cool' invention, they hope to open the door to developments in the field of synthetic biology if they are successful. “Many people are not yet aware of what synthetic biology is.”
Source : ntvmsnbc
📩 14/08/2013 19:45
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