Plants can grow their own glow-in-the-dark cotton, no genetic engineering required

Researchers are stitching new functions
into textiles, enabling them to harvest energy,
light up, change colors, detect pollution,
and even communicate.
One problem is that intelligent textiles
are created by chemically treating fabrics
before they are made into clothing.
And those treatments can wear out rapidly
Now researchers have incorporated
functional molecules into cotton plants
as they grow,
which allows the plants to build
the functional fibers.
They did this with a sweet idea, modified sugars.
They started with hydroponically-grown cotton plants
that grow in dishes rather than a field.
They fed the plants water
spiked with glucose molecules
linked to other functional molecules,
which were then absorbed by the plants
and passed to the fiber-forming cells where they
were used to build the plant’s cotton fibers.
In one example, the researchers linked
fluorescent molecules to the sugars.
After 20 days of growth,
the fibers appear yellow under normal light.
But when exposed to UV light
they glow a brilliant green.
The researchers also linked
magnetic compounds to their sugars
and showed they too were incorporated.
In the future that could enable clothing makers
to build data storage capabilities
right into garments.
This is probably just the beginning.
Smart clothes promise to give us
stronger, lighter, and brighter attire.
And when grown right into the fibers,
those add-ons may never fade or wear out.
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Plants can grow their own glow-in-the-dark cotton, no genetic engineering required

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