A plant was created by genetically modifying its structure to include luciferin, a chemical that gives jellyfish their radiant glow.
Today we have used a chemical reaction to make real flowers glow in the dark. Place a white flower into a glass for several hours to absorb the fluorescent highlighter ink.
When the flower has adsorbed the water, its petals will glow!
This experiment uses a "black light".
Black lights look purple, but it's the light they produce that you can't see that's really interesting. Black lights produce ultraviolet (UV) light. Our eyes can't perceive UV light, but our skin can feel it; UV light is the reason we get sunburns.
Some substances, like the ink in many highlighter pens, will glow under a UV light. The fluorescent ink absorbs the energy in the UV light, and then emits it as visible light.
This is a really nice way to show how water is transported up the plant roots and into the leaves. Here is your photosynthesis equation:
ReplyDeleteCarbon dioxide + water -> sugar + oxygen
You can see how the water is moved up to the leaves to do photosynthesis. I've seen this done with white flowers and coloured ink before but it is not as easy with leaves because of the colour.
Be careful to not look into the UV light, shield it with a cardboard box.