Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde and his team have engineered an independent and autonomous source of light at night. And it can be found in new glow in the dark trees called "Starlight Avatar."

Roosegaarde got the idea from a jellyfish that has the ability to create light from itself when it's deep underwater.

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"It does not have a battery or a solar panel or an energy bill. It does it completely autonomously," he said. "What can we learn from that?"

Starlight Avatar was also partially inspired by the work of a team from the University of Cambridge that genetically modified material from fireflies and a luminescent bacterium, and subsequently inserted them into certain genomes.

This team put together a Kickstarter campaign for glowing plants that use no electricity.

Roosegaarde went to Alexander Krichevsky at the State University of New York. The company called Bioglow was then organized to commercialize autoluminescent plants.

Their research centers on the enzyme called luciferase, which catalyzes light-emitting reactions in different organisms.

The team then gathered the needed plants: the common Nicotiana tabacum houseplants that carried the bacterial lux operon. This allowed the plants to produce luciferates and their substrates, luciferins.

The product was called Starlight Avatar.

Bioglow's first plant variety has a lifespan of about two to three months. The light it emits when it glows in the dark during night time is comparable to that of starlight.

The team's collective vision is to illuminate the city using these plants, saving electricity and energy in the process.

Apart from the Starlight Avatar, Roosegaarde is also trying to create glow in the dark paint from mushrooms which, when coated on trees, will make them glow in the dark.

TagsDaan Roosegaarde, Starlight Avatar, Alexander Krichevsky, Bioglow