What is bioluminescence and how is it used by humans and in nature?
July 27, 2018 by Catrin F. Williams, The Conversation
The sea was luminous in specks and in the wake of the vessel, of a uniform slightly milky colour. When the water was put into a bottle, it gave out sparks…
This is the first entry in Charles Darwin's zoological notebook, written while he was aboard the Beagle just off the coast of Tenerife, on January 6, 1832. What Darwin saw was bioluminescent sea creatures, flickering light in response to physical disruption.
Bioluminescence, the production and emission of light by living organisms, became a sticking point for Darwin. He struggled to explain why this phenomenon appeared in separate species in a seemingly random fashion. We now know, however, that bioluminescence has evolved independently at least 40 times on land and in the sea.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-bioluminescence-humans-nature.html#jCp
