Latest Firefly Stories

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Zoic Studios, an award-winning visual effects company headquartered in Culver City, CA, has teamed up with Davis Elen Advertising and Contrast Eye in their first collaborative effort to create McDonald's new "Splash" commercial which gives a fresh take on the new lineup of signature dipping sauces. Zoic Studios provided complete 360 post-production on the commercial working closely with renowned Finnish director Juuso Syrija. The new commercial...

San Francisco State University researcher finds bioluminescent fungus not seen since 1840In 1840, renowned English botanist George Gardner reported a strange sight from the streets of Vila de Natividade in Brazil: A group of boys playing with a glowing object that turned out to be a luminescent mushroom. They called it "flor-de-coco," and showed Gardner where it grew on decaying fronds at the base of a dwarf palm. Gardner sent the mushroom to the Kew Herbarium in England where it...

Firefly partners work together to find work-family balanceEvery parent with young children knows that couples need to work together to accomplish the myriad tasks waiting both at work and at home. But it may come as a surprise that fireflies also juggle their commitments to find a comfortable work-family balance. According to new research led by biologists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences, wingless "stay-at-home" female fireflies get less support from their mates...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., April 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- U-Haul today announced the release of 1,900 new 20-foot moving vans showcasing the most common firefly species in Indiana, and also the science of bioluminescence--the scientific process by which chemical energy is converted into lifesaving light. This newest SuperGraphic also honors the Purdue Department of Entomology, where some of the early research on the chemistry of firefly light was discovered. For more than 200 years, entomologists...

Funds will help commercialize new LED product line Austin, TX (PRWEB) March 6, 2011 The State of Texas Emerging Technology Fund recently announced that it has awarded $3 million to Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) member company Firefly LED Lighting for product commercialization. Energy industry regulators in the United States and worldwide are phasing out incandescent and fluorescent lighting in favor of LED (light-emitting diode) technology to save energy costs and lessen...

Lynn Yarris, Berkeley LabA unique new probe based on luciferase, the enzyme that gives fireflies their glow, enables researchers to monitor  hydrogen peroxide levels in mice and thereby track the progression of infectious diseases or cancerous tumors without harming the animals or even having to shave their fur. Developed by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, this new bioluminescent probe has already...

The enzyme that makes fireflies glow is lighting up the scientific path toward a long-sought new medical imaging agent to better monitor treatment with heparin, the blood thinner that millions of people take to prevent or treat blood clots, scientists are reporting. Their study appears in the ACS' monthly journal Bioconjugate Chemistry.Bruce Branchini and colleagues describe a need for new medical imaging agents that emit near-infrared light "” the light rays that "night vision"...

The new Renilla-Gloâ„¢ Luciferase Assay brings the convenience of the "add, mix, measure" assay format to applications using the sea pansy (Renilla reniformis) luciferase. Madison, WI (PRWEB) December 22, 2010 The new Renilla-Gloâ„¢ Luciferase Assay brings the convenience of the "add, mix, measure" assay format to applications using the sea pansy (Renilla reniformis) luciferase. The assay is ideal for screening in applications where a smaller molecular size reporter gene,...

Satellites are big. They cost a lot of money. At least that's the impression a couple of University of Maryland-College Park students had when they applied for an internship to help construct a satellite instrument with scientists at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. As the pair quickly discovered, nothing could have been farther from the truth.To their astonishment, the satellite that Saman Kholdebarin and Lida Ramsey helped to develop was literally the size of a...

First experiments suggest that synchronous male flashing is more recognizable to femalesFor decades, scientists have speculated about why some fireflies exhibit synchronous flashing, in which large groups produce rhythmic, repeated flashes in unison "“ sometimes lighting up a whole forest at once. Now, the first experiments on the function of this phenomenon suggest that synchronous flashing preserves female fireflies' recognition of suitable mates. The results are reported in the July 9...