Bioluminescent wood using the white rot fungus desarmillaria tabescens

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202403215

by gnabgib • 2 years ago

130 26 2 years ago

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

I wasn't aware that rotting wood could be bioluminescent until I saw it myself one night during a walk in the woods. I was familiar with the terrain which enabled me to navigate at night without torchlight. My eyes were accustomed to the dark, I wouldn't have spotted it otherwise. On seeing the mysterious glow I turned on my torch to inspect - it was an oak branch tinged with a characteristic blue color, and very wet, the texture of the wood was very soft. Location: Surrey, UK.

dekhn3• 2 years ago

I used to have extremely good dark adaptation and was able to navigate trails in pitch-dark (no moon) nights, by looking away (the sides of your vision are more sensitive to faint light) and sort of defocusing... I'd see the shape of the trail glowing slightly, and I believe it was bits of overturned wood that had been rotting.

It's really subtle. Would only notice it on completely dark nights entirely away from any light sources, and even then, only on trails that had been recently traversed.

com2kid• 2 years ago

Night vision is one of the things I miss most about being really young.

Driving at night used to be fun! And I was easily able to walk around in near pitch black.

Plenty other things can be maintained with good health and exercise, but night vision isn't ever coming back. :(

fallinditch2• 2 years ago

When walking in woodland at night in very dark conditions without a torch, another good technique is to look up at the shape of the tree branches silhouetted against the sky - you can often discern where the trail goes.

tomcam• 2 years ago

I mean Surrey borders on magical as it is... Love that place

n4r9• 2 years ago

My eyes were accustomed to the dark, I wouldn't have spotted it otherwise.

Funny you say that; my partner is a mycologist and her reaction to the linked article was that the luminescence is typically too weak to be very noticeable or useful.

lightedman• 2 years ago

Perhaps they are like me and have additional sensitivity to yellow and UV. Things which are dim or nearly-invisible for most are moderately visible to me, like the Pleiades for an example.

yarg2• 2 years ago

My favourite story about bioluminescence is "angel's glow" in the civil war.

A bioluminescent microbe colonised the wounds of civil war soldiers, beating out pathogens and preventing sepsis.

https://www.utmb.edu/mdnews/podcast/episode/glowing-wounds

pomian• 2 years ago

What a great link. Thankyou. There is still so much to learn from the microbiome. Working with contaminated sites, I have seen bacterial adaptations to the most l nastiest sites, almost always improving the toxicity of the soil. (There are rare exceptions.)

yarg2• 2 years ago

Thanks, but it really wasn't - it was just the least shit of the top five results for "civil war bioluminescence".

I'd much prefer a more scientific article, especially one that delves into the (let's say) caste system of the bacteria - where one of it's developmental forms is symbiotic with a nematode (?) worm, and the other colonises plant roots.

I'm guessing it was more than likely the plant root form (resident in forest soil) rather than the worm gut symbiote - I doubt they'd've ended up calling it "angel's glow" if the soldiers wounds had been wriggling.

The other thing that puts me off is that it's one of a general class of fawning article about high schoolers, when (for one reason or another) what the child did wasn't really that impressive.

In this case because her mother clearly did her homework for her.

Edit:

Plant roots: https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/aem.00891-20

Nematodes: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Devang-Upadhyay/publica...

blincoln• 2 years ago

Unfortunately, that story is likely a hoax/urban legend.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/10/26/angels-glow-civil-war...

akanet• 2 years ago

I'm growing panellum stipticus on some wood and rice right now. The glow is very faint but quite satisfying to perceive. I hope to make a nice nightlight out of it

VierScar• 2 years ago

What do you mean by "on" rice? On the living plant? Or you mean it's growing in a jar of rice?

A bioluminescent wood nightlight sounds amazing, surely someone sells them

dekhn3• 2 years ago

https://www.instructables.com/Growing-Mushrooms-With-Rice/

ceejayoz2• 2 years ago

I have four bioluminescent petunia houseplants above my bed for that.

AyyEye• 2 years ago

Rice (flour) is a common substrate to grow mushrooms. Make sterilized/hydrated rice cake and inject some spores into it.

InDubioProRubio• 2 years ago

Imagine emergency lighting, that just glows for month, all it takes is some accumulator dust- solar sell, capacitor, piezzo crystal, giving the wood dust a regular stir in a bottle garden.

jimmySixDOF• 2 years ago

Another 'usefull' rot is what forms the incense Agarwood, popular in arab and asian culture, where a certain type of forrest/jungle tree is infected and, after 50yrs, results in the highly sought after perfume that can run you in the tens of thousands $ per kg.

DoctorOetker• 2 years ago

Unlocking the mechanisms behind fungal bioluminescence could provide an electricity free light-source for the future with a low energy requirement. A battery-free or plug-free sustainable light source based on bioluminescent fungi would be beneficial for the environment and help us meet net zero targets in line with the IPCC synthesis report.[55] Utilizing bioluminescence to illuminate our homes and communities would result in energy savings and a reduction in CO2 emissions. The alternative light source would also reduce nighttime light pollution, a global concern in large cities. For example, bioluminescent wood was used to illuminate the compass and depth gauge of the first submarine, the Turtle, at Benjamin Franklin's suggestion.[56]

Ctrl-F "efficien" => no search hits for efficient or efficiency. Is there any indication to believe these deeply multistep chemical processes to be more energetically efficient than modern electronics & LED's operated at similar radiant powers?

Or is the idea that this can absorb clean wood waste streams? If so all these proposals will need a benefficiency coefficient: i.e. how much LCO energy saved by not simply letting wood rot, such that many competing ideas of what to do with "clean wood waste streams" can be compared; already lots of organic waste streams not digestible by humans or livestock are being intentionally digested by microbial organisms to extract useful protein suitable for livestock...

Bioluminescent wood using the white rot fungus desarmillaria tabescens

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