Murky said:... I do remember reading that all the cute fairy lights people put up interferes with and confuses mating of fireflies. I wonder if glow-in-the-dark plants will have similar effects.
Other people have the same question:
"Jennifer Kuzma, codirector of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University, says she's concerned that the agency didn't conduct a more formal assessment of the plant's potential environmental and ecological risks. Even though bioluminescence occurs naturally, glowing plants could affect the behavior of insects and animals that aren't accustomed to it. "It depends on how widely these are grown and whether they were to establish more wildly," she says."
And here's the developers' response to that.
"In its application to the USDA, Light Bio addressed this concern, saying that petunias are normally grown in people's homes, businesses, or botanical gardens, where "nighttime illumination due to artificial lighting far exceeds light emission from the auto-luminescent petunias."
I dunno, that answer seems a bit superficial. The future is here: like AI, genetic modification has arrived. And also like AI, developers will use it for serious good and frivolous pleasure.
