BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: InOBU
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 08:43 PM

If I don't drink, I can read by the glow of my hands! COOL!!!
Larry
"Larry! You've been drinking! You ain't golowing!" says Genie my sweetie... some late night in the future! "Feeding me grass potatos!" says I (grass meening informer for our American cousins...)

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 08:33 PM

BI-zzzzare.........Must be the Religous Right, huh? A finger in every potato, and a potato in every finger.....uhhhhh, bye now.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: InOBU
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 08:22 PM

Ah the last fellow nearly beat me too it... I wonder, if those catch on as human food, will folks in Ireland begin to glow towards the end of mass? (Isupose the pubs still close till after mass, eh)
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 08:14 PM

I suppose they could transplant the gene into humans. When you start glowing softly green, it's a sign that someone should get you a drink.

Horror movies will never be the same again. A ghastly green face looms up in the misty night. "It's my shout, come on down the pub and I'll buy you a pint," says the hero.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 06:59 PM

Is it time to rehash the pickle?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 06:53 PM

It won't work. Potatoes spread like weeds. You may think you got them all out of the ground, but there's always some little bugger hiding under a rock that you don't find out about until next year.

The glow in the dark potatoes will take over the world. We won't be able to eat potatoes any more.

FOR GOD SAKE, THINK OF THE HUMANITY! Stop this madness before it's too late!

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Bert
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 04:55 PM

Yer right Troll, I apologise for reviving an 'in joke'.

I think it all started here. Well I'm gonna blame Jeri anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: mousethief
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 04:51 PM

80 grand EACH POTATO? Those are pricey potatoes!

I was going to say that when I glow it's usually a sign that I've quenched my thirst a little too much, if you take my meaning.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Troll
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 03:58 PM

"What about Big Mick and his Thong?" he asked innocently.

troll ***heh heh heh****

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Bert
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 03:51 PM

McGrath, Re: Irish jokes. Actually I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned Big Mick and his Thong.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: MMario
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 01:41 PM

*grin* I know, I was an agricultural science major.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Ringer
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 01:38 PM

I went to a family do last Sat eve; met my farming cousins. Far from their potatoes being thirsty, they were all bemoaning the fact that they can't be lifted because the ground's waterlogged. If there's a hard frost now, they'll lose the lot. A loss of eighty grand (that's in English quid) each. (Normally the spuds are lifted in the fortnight starting on the first Monday in October!). When I was a boy, they were lifted by gangs of women recruited from the town nearby, who regarded the job as a holiday of sorts (much like hop-picking used to be, I suspect), though now it's done by machine. I learned a lot of new words (mainly for body-parts) from those "ladies".

And they can't lift the sugar-beet either, although I gather that's less critical.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Gary T
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 01:14 PM

Actually, MMario, wilting is a sign that the plants needed to have been watered (sort of like throwing up is a sign that you should have stopped about 3 beers ago). Sometimes it's too late once wilting has set in.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: MMario
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 12:59 PM

gosh! I thought that wilting was a sign the plants needed to be watered? Just think - in only a few years we'll be able to tell the same thing by means of genetics and electronics.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 12:55 PM

I was just about to post this, but Max got there first. Of course.

It's not easy being green

I imagine we'll have a spate of jokes about Irish potatoes now.

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 12:41 PM

Hope they will branch this technology into dog food so that when going for a stroll at night you will be able to detect and avoid doggy mines.
Maybe they will develop some sort of night eye wear to spot the 'doggy do'.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 12:32 PM

And next season, rabbits you can see in the dark...

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 12:20 PM

This is great! Where is my agricultural tricorder?

Subject: RE: BS: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Morticia
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 12:18 PM

At last, no more dead house plants!

Subject: Potato glows when it is thirsty
From: Max
Date: 18 Dec 00 - 11:56 AM

New Super-Spud Glows Green to Ask for Water

Updated 6:59 AM ET December 18, 2000

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have pioneered a genetically modified "super potato" that glows when it needs water, the head of the project said on Monday.

Researchers at Edinburgh University injected potato plants with a fluorescence gene borrowed from the luminous jellyfish aequorea victoria, which causes their leaves to glow green when dehydrated.

"This is an agriculture of the future," Professor Anthony Trewavas told Reuters. "We were trying to design a way of monitoring the resources within a field and decided it was the plant itself which has that information."

The potatoes are not intended to be eaten but would act as "sentinels," planted beside the commercial crop to alert a farmer that the rest of his field needed watering.

The glow is barely visible to the naked eye but can be detected using a small hand-held device. Field trials are due to start next year though Trewavas predicted it could take some 20 years before the plants are commonly used.

The technology could be extended to other fruit and vegetables, he added.