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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

What is Bioluminescence?

Did you know that some fish and sea invertebrates can make their own lights that glow? This is called bioluminescence.


These lights are made when 2 chemicals are mixed together. The chemical reaction makes the glow.

Look at the brainstorm below to find out why sea creatures make lights.


We found out that glowsticks light up in the same way as sea creatures do. The glowstick has 2 tubes, 1 inside the other. Each tube has a different chemical in it. When the glowstick is bent the inside tube cracks open. This makes the 2 chemicals mix together and the chemical reaction causes the glow.

We investigated the glowsticks and put them into ice water and hot water. This is what we observed and found out.

ICE WATER
  • The glow was duller.
  • It looked like the chemical was freezing.
  • The chemical reaction slowed down.

HOT WATER
  • The glow was much brighter.
  • The part of the glowstick that was in the hot water glowed a lot more than the part that was not in the hot water.
  • The chemical reaction sped up.


2 comments:

  1. This is so awesome man. However, the experiement you are testing is not bioluminescence; it is chemiluminescence. A light reaction that takes place in glowsticks, not naturally living organisms.
    Improve on it some more?

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  2. Thanks for your comment. Yes you are right that glow sticks are not an example of bioluminscence. We we just using them to demonstrate what bioluminescence might look like in the ocean.

    But my understanding is that bioluminescence is a type of chemiluminescence only produced by animals. It is a biological process of creating light through a chemical reaction.

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