Hunting for fireflies at dusk is a staple of summertime fun, but for years, no knew exactly how the bugs emitted their signature glow. Now, new research claims to have the answer.
Bruce Branchini said 60 years of science has given us a pretty good understanding of firefly biology. We know a lot about the chemicals and proteins going into the reaction that lights up a firefly’s belly, but what we didn't know until now are the exact details of how those chemicals react.
To answer that question, Branchini, who studies chemistry at Connecticut College, paired up with some researchers at Yale to look at a the common eastern firefly (Photinuspyralis).
They created a model of the glowing chemical reaction and, using some fancy equipment, detected a form of molecular oxygen called "superoxide."
Gary Brudvig worked on the project at Yale. "It's a new pathway for the reaction that we think is more efficient and faster than the one that was previously believed to be the mechanism," he said.
Bruce Branchini said when you understand the basic chemical mechanism for how something works, innovation usually follows and "we are hopeful that our work will lead to the development of brighter bioluminescent sources for improved applications," he said.
Innovations like more efficient kits detecting contamination in hospital operating rooms or better ways to image tumor cells.
The results were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
