Welcome to You Ask Andy

Randy t.iomot, age 12, of St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, for his question:

What is bioluminescence?

Luminescence is light and "bio" means "life"    bioluminescence is living light. The most famous example is the flashing firefly that lights our summer evenings. Certain toadstools and bacteria add an eerie glow in the plant world. Creatures that shed bioluminescence throughout the animal kingdom include protozoa, hydras, and sponges, jellyfishes, snails and centipedes, certain clams, crustaceans and marine worms, plus a large assortment of insects and fishes.

The flashing firefly has a remarkable light shedding organ in the tail end of his body. Its cells create the living light of bioluminescence  and a switch system flashes it on and off to send signals to his mate. Off the shores of Bermuda, a certain sea worm spreads a circle of bioluminescence to guide her mate to the surface to fertilize the eggs she strews in the water.

Instead of the usual ink cloud, a certain deep sea squid emits a haze of biolumi¬nescence to conceal himself from his foes. The deep sea angler is a fish with a fish¬ing; rod on his nose. The tip of the rod is a bulb of living light, used to lure other fishes to dinner. Numerous single celled organisms emit light continuously, others only at night. ?zany microscopic marine organisms glow only when disturbed. In warm seas they light up the rolling water in the make of a ship and the rolling, waves along the beaches.

The list of bioluminescent wonders goes on and on. And researchers probe on and on to solve the wondrous nays in which it works. Light as we know can be created by heat, electricity and other forms of energy. Bioluminescence is created chemically by the certain living cells and cellular solutions.

The basic activity involves certain energy producing biochemicals, such as ATP, oxygen and very complicated enzyme that act as catalysts. Some of the light bearing enzymes contain 1,000 amino acids and are among the largest of all protein molecules. One of these miniature dynamos is luciferin. Its molecular structure varies in differ¬ent species    but in each case it reacts with oxygen and certain biochemicals to emit the living, light of bioluminescence.

In the firefly, luciferin. and luciferase create this molecular miracle. The fatty tissue of the insect's llght organ contain layers of lumigikscent and reflector cells.

The living generator is fueled by networks of tiny capillaries, bearing oxygen and food chemicals. The flashing on and off switch is regulated by delicate nerves that connect the light organ to the firefly's head.

In most cases, bioluminescence belongs to simple species and marine dwellers. Developing land species may have traded their living light systems for snore advanced features. There is no bioluminescence among the amphibians and reptiles, among the birds and mammals.

 

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