Bioluminescence and Sebald

[Image: A bioluminescent tobacco plant, via Wikivisual].

Until I read this wonderful post over at BLDBBlog, I had completely forgotten the brief section in W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn where he writes about two 19th century scientists who wanted to “capture the bioluminescent properties of dead herrings and use that as a means of artificially illuminating the nighttime streets of Victorian London”. The post describes several recent and fascinating encounters with bioluminescence.