On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:11:17 +0100, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> The chemical reaction behind it is apparently understood, since genetic  
> engineers apparently use biolunimescence all the time as a marker during  
> experiments.

They do that by attaching genes from a bioluminescent organism, thus  
making the modified organism glow if the new genetic material was  
successfully introduced. Direct use of just the chemicals has only limited  
use.

As far as I know, the chemicals involved can not (yet?) be synthesized;  
they are produced by biological means.



> not. At worst the chemicals just stop working.

I was being facetious. In theory you could of course produce the chemicals  
elsewhere, and then just "fill it up" like you would an oil lamp. I am not  
sure about the longevity of the chemicals, though, especially since they  
react with oxygen.


> A far more serious problem is that the reaction is driven by chemical  
> rather than electrical energy. If you can find a way around that you've  
> got a viable product.

I think it might be difficult to make a non-biological distribution system  
that gives acceptable efficiency while maintaining a constant brightness.  
The worse problem, however, is that the chemicals are not easily produced  
in large quantities, and the production processes may not be particularly  
efficient.



-- 
FE

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