Science Explains - Glowing Waves

You walk down the beach. It’s dark. You hold your significant other’s hand and stare lovingly into their eyes. The waves crash at the shore, illuminating the scenery with a beautiful blue light. You stop and stare. The waves are glowing?

This phenomenon can be observed in many places, for example, California, Australia or the Caribbean. Responsible for the beautiful spectacle are tiny, single-celled organisms called dinoflagellates. They are a kind of phytoplankton and there are more than one species that fall under the name.

One of them is Noctiluca scintillans, which can be observed at the Australian coast.

When the dinoflagellates are disturbed, which they are when waves are throwing them violently against the shore, they start glowing. The glow is achieved by a chemical reaction between something called luciferin, an enzyme called luciferase and oxygen.

As most things in life, the bioluminescence of the dinoflagellates isn’t just there to be looked at by humans, it serves a function.

Imagine you’re a fish, just looking for a midnight snack. You encounter a swarm of plankton and promptly eat some. Suddenly, there is a bright flash! Everything is glowing! Panic! You swim away and completely forget about the plankton you wanted to eat.

Reacting to mechanical stress with glowing is the perfect defense against being eaten. At least for a tiny organism that can’t defend itself.

But why blue? Why not red?

Well, blue is a wavelength that travels furthest through the water.

By the way, there are several places that sell dinoflagellates. So if you want some for yourself at home to annoy until they glow, just google!

And now, do yourself a favor and click through the sources I linked below because they have so many beautiful pictures I wasn’t allowed to use.

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Sources:

Bioluminescence turns Australia's shores fluorescent blue

Pictures: Glowing Blue Waves Explained

Seas that glow like stars

Understanding Bioluminescence in Dinoflagellates—How Far Have We Come?

Dinoflagellate Bioluminescence

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Picture by makelessnoise from Bountiful, Utah, USA
(Biolumin' Essence) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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