After the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, many Civil War soldiers’ lives were saved by a phenomenon called ‘Angel’s Glow.’ The soldiers, who lay in the mud for two rainy days, had wounds that began to glow in the dark and heal unusually fast. In 2001, 2 teens won an international science fair by discovering the soldiers had been so cold that their bodies created the perfect conditions for growing a bioluminescent bacteria, which ultimately destroyed the bad bacteria that could’ve killed them. Source Source 2 Source 3
wtf life is cool
that’s so incredibly specific, what luck!
Another fun thing: the bacterial that causes this, P. luminescens, lives inside parasitic nematodes and releases a toxin that kills the host caterpillars. The gene that creates this toxin is called “makes caterpillars floppy”. That’s it. That’s its official name.
:OOOOOO
