Greetings fellow nerds.
In this video we’re going to make flowers glow in the dark
under ultraviolet light using a fluorescent dye.
The procedure is actually really simple.
Just get a fluorescent highlighter and open it up.
Get out the foam ink cartridge and squeeze a few drops of the ink into a cup of water.
Shake it until it's thoroughly mixed.
Now get a flower, I prefer these white carnations,
and cut off the bottom few centimeters or so.
It’s best to do this underwater in solution.
Keep the flower in the solution and leave it overnight.
And that’s all you need to do.
Now let’s go back to our original flowers.
Normally under ultraviolet light these flowers have no fluorescence.
Now here is the treated flower that we made after leaving it overnight to absorb the dye.
In visible light it doesn’t look any different.
But when I shine an ultraviolet light on it we can see it's fluorescing throughout.
Let me show you a better comparison.
The untreated flowers are on the left, while the treated flowers are on the right.
Under ultraviolet light the dye glows from inside the cells of the flower.
Here’s a close up shot of the flower.
We can now see that the flower isn’t simply fluorescing evenly
but is actually brighter at the edges of the petals rather than the interior.
This is because the dye accumulates more at the edges.
My video camera resolution isn’t great,
but here is a shot with my Digital SLR so you can see it in full detail.
We turned a uniform white flower into something with a little more design.
So for valentines day, instead of just giving regular flowers,
give some glow in the dark ones.
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