If you loved the glowing plants in the movie “Avatar,” you can now have one of your own. The company Light Bio has genetically engineered a petunia to glow a light green that is visible in a dark room. The firefly petunia glows a faint green when exposed to a lot of light during the day. Even though it is always glowing, the green glow is only noticeable when the plant is placed in full darkness at night or in a dark room.
Genetically engineered organisms are created by taking the genetic information from one organism and putting it into a completely different type of organism. Genetically engineered organisms are a type of genetically modified organism because modifications do occur. However, the two terms do not mean the same thing, and GEOs should not be described as GMOs. The firefly petunia has genes from mushrooms that naturally glow green, making the petunia a GEO.
