Firefly luciferin and luciferase, the fluid that glows, is used to detect bacterial contamination in food, cancer research and may even be used to test for life on Mars.

Fireflies used to light up the summer, but now habitat loss, pesticides and light pollution threaten lightning bugs with ...

A luminescence reaction modeled on fireflies can detect contamination with organophosphates with high sensitivity, ease, and low cost. At the center of this technology is a new enzymatic method for ...

The leading hypothesis for the origin of firefly lights has been overturned by a genomic analysis. It had been posited that the bright lights emitted by many species in the Lampyridae family of ...