Rediscovered glowing mushroom could shed light on bioluminescence (Wired UK)

“Researchers believe that fungi make light just as the firefly does, using a chemical mix of a compound called luciferin and an enzyme luciferase. However, scientists haven’t yet identified the luciferin and luciferase in fungi which glow at all times rather than in bursts as fireflies do”

Dang. When I read this title, I was hoping it was some symbiotic bacteria that was glowing and there’d be some cool story as to how the fungi take up the bacteria. Alas, the fungi produces its own glow. But then, quite interesting that its done with luciferase, like fireflies. A quick look at Luciferase in Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciferase> shows that luciferase is found in quite divergent organisms.

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