On summer nights, among the bushes and grass, sometimes you can see a small flying "lamp". If you grab it, you will find that it is nothing more than a small inconspicuous insect: a firefly.
In rural areas, if you can catch many fireflies and put them in small transparent glass bottles, you can make a living "electric light" without batteries. According to legend, there was a very hard-working reader in ancient times on the mainland, his name was Che Yin, and his family was poor and could not afford lamp oil, so he caught a lot of fireflies, locked them in a transparent shabu pocket, and used them to illuminate reading at night. This is the story of the night reading of the fireflies.
In recent years, fireflies have attracted the interest of many scientists, who actively study the secrets of fireflies' luminescence. Where does the light on the firefly's body come from? A closer look reveals that this glowing little "lamp" is located between the sixth and seventh segments of the belly of the firefly, where there is a particularly thin part of the epidermis, so thin that it is almost transparent. Inside this membrane is the small "lamp" of fireflies - light-emitting organs. The light-emitting organ of fireflies consists of a small cluster of special large cells, surrounded by many small nerves and small trachea. These cells contain a wonderful substance called luciferin. When fireflies breathe, oxygen enters the cell from the small trachea, combines with luciferin, and under the action of another substance, fluorescease, a chemical reaction occurs and light is emitted. Fireflies can attract the opposite sex or transmit messages to their peers by glowing. When encountering predators, the "light" light of fireflies can sound an emergency alarm.
This luminous ability of fireflies makes electrical engineers very envious. Because Firefly's "light consumes very little energy and has a high luminous efficiency, far more than any kind of electric light made by humans." If you can make electric lights that mimic the light-emitting organs of fireflies, you can save a lot of electricity. But until now, scientists have not built such a lamp.