Algae cultures (Pyrocystis fusiformis)

Our first assignment in Design Frontiers in Biology and Materiality was to recreate favorite science experiments from when we were kids. I immediately thought back to summer evenings I spent on Orcas Island, skipping stones into water that sparkled with bioluminescence. After doing a little reading to see if I could actually grow bioluminescent algae at home, I ordered some cultures. They had to be shipped overnight so they wouldn’t freeze en route, and they required a little recovery time after shipping. They seem to be thriving now.

These algae are very strict adherents to their circadian rhythms; they require 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness every 24 hours. I set up half of the cultures to photosynthesize during the day, and the other half are exposed to artificial light at night and kept in the dark during the day. The algae will only glow when it has experienced a period of darkness (i.e. if you take it into a dark room during what it’s accustomed to as daylight hours, you won’t see any glowing).