AUSTRALIA: Lighting Christmas tree with grass clippings

Students at RMIT University in Melbourne have designed an innovative biological fluorescent lighting system that can use garden waste to power multi-coloured Christmas tree lights. The project is as an entry in a competition running this week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The university's inaugural team in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition flew to MIT to compete against the world's brightest young scientists. The competition has grown from five teams in 2004 to a 112 in 2009, with students from Asia, Europe, Latin America and the US among many other countries.

Student teams are given a kit of biological parts at the start of the year and use these parts, along with new pieces to suit their own design, to build biological systems and operate them in living cells.

The Melbourne team - known as Fluoroforce Down Under - consists of three bachelor of applied science students. They say the system operates via "cell free transcription and translation, also known as CFTnT technology", and that the project "aims to apply the principles of synthetic biology in a simple manner that could be efficient for everyday use".

"It is ethical, environmentally friendly, safe and non-toxic. It can power multi-coloured Christmas lights for use on a tree or around the house or garden."

The project was supported financially by RMIT, the national science organisation CSIRO, and Qiagen, an international company that provides products for biological research.

"The iGEM experience has given us an opportunity to develop invaluable skills such as responsibility and time management, as well as an endless list of laboratory techniques that we will use as our career progresses," Danielle Kamato, one of the students, says.