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Chinese Scientists Made Glowing Plants with Firefly DNA to Replace Streetlights (www.zmescience.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 75 points 2 months ago (10 children)

yeah this is definitely a case of "let's do this because it's fun and try to think of a legitimate use for it later".

also you can get glowing petunias now from https://light.bio/.

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  • [–] 40 points 2 months ago (9 children)

    Authenticity Notice: Light Bio does not sell or authorize the sale of seeds. Our bioluminescent technology is available exclusively in live plant form.

    seems predatory

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  • [–] 18 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    IP in plant breeds is a thing unfortunately. Furthermore these traits are often created by radioactive or chemical procedure and don't replicate into the seeds.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    I specifically cloned these and cross bred them to give to my friends. They weren’t even that interesting of a plant, the light gimmick is shit, and you can barely see it on a new moon night. But since they told me I wasn’t allowed to propagate it, that was the first thing I did.

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  • [+] -7 points 2 months ago* (4 children)

    They developed the product and deserve to make some money from it.

    Also they are purely decorative plants, it’s not like people need these things for food or any other reason. Hard to call that “predatory”.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago*

    They deserve to make some money from it. Mostly the original researchers that is. They had their wages to do their fucking job researching shit. Maybe we should have a kind of UN bonus system to reward outstanding research.

    These companies take the research and all that it's build on and use it for free to develop it into a product. Do a good job growing and selling them then, make money. But laws protecting them to create an artificial monopoly is unethical. It's hard to build up a successful and efficient company, but monopolies practically invite them to be inefficient and garbage.

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