Where does the mushroom glow?

Lecturer Le Duy Thang, Department of Biology, University of Natural Sciences - Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City:

(Artwork: tripod.com) Glow in mushrooms is related to the direct conversion of chemical energy into light energy. The light emitted does not depend on the energy of light or other energy taken in and so it is ' cold light '.

The color of light differs in relation to the different properties of substrate (luciferin). For example, the fungus emits a bluish green light, while marine life emits blue light; jellyfish emit green light; fireflies emit a bluish yellow light; earthworms emit red light.

In fungi, the light-emitting mechanism consists of two steps: loading chemical energy from respiration or photosynthesis on a particular molecule called luciferin. Next they used this specially activated molecule to combine with oxygen and a special enzyme luciferase. This process causes luciferin to decay strongly and has a photon of light emitted.

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