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p/biogloA bioluminescent aquarium 🐠
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Keegan Cooke

BioGlo - A bioluminescent aquarium 🐠

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Inside its sleek hourglass shape, BioGlo contains hundreds of tiny microbes called dinoflagellates (aka dinos). These dinos have the natural ability to absorb the sun's rays during the day and emit a mysterious blue glow when shaken at night!

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David Tran
Bioluminescence always amazes me! 🌟 @keegan_cooke can you talk a little bit about the background behind this project? How did you guys decide to bring bioluminescence into the home/classroom/office? I see that your company has a couple previous projects, MudWatt and DoughLab— how did you guys go from working on those to working on BioGlo? And finally, since it's an educational product, can you teach us something really interesting about bioluminescence or dinoflagellates? 😀
Keegan Cooke
Maker
@dtran320 Thanks so much for the great questions! I live in northern California, where there are some Bays that have bioluminescent dino blooms seasonally. I went Kayaking through them one night and it was easily the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It really demonstrated how alive the water was. My cofounder, Kevin, and I wanted everyone to be able to experience that whenever they wanted, in their own homes. Yes, we've previously launched two microbe-themed products in the past (MudWatt and DoughLab) which allow you to make electricity from microbes, or food from microbes. You can see the theme with our products is to feature the amazing abilities of microbes. Fun Fact: While the bioluminescence in dinoflagellates (dinos) has been studied for years, nobody is completely sure why they do it in the first place. The leading theory is that it helps illuminate their own predators, so that their predators' predators will see and eat them, thus leaving dinos at peace to live and prosper. Pretty neat survival trick huh?
David Tran
@keegan_cooke " The leading theory is that it helps illuminate their own predators, so that their predators' predators will see and eat them, thus leaving dinos at peace to live and prosper." That's AMAZING
Keegan Cooke
Maker

Runs on live bioluminescent micro-organisms. Really fascinating and beautiful creatures.

Pros:

it's awesome

Cons:

it costs money

Geordie Mugsey

can't wait

Pros:

Looks great

Cons:

None known

Brad Mitchell
Bought for my girlfriend who is obsessed with these organisms. Can’t wait to receive it. Keep up the good work!
Iren
This is incredible! Like in a science of some fiction film :) I've always dreamed of seeing bioluminescence in the sea. And soon we will observe this fantastically beautiful phenomenon in our own aquariums!