A bright ‘glow stick’ marker for cells

Any child who has played with a glowstick or captured a firefly understands the wonder of chemiluminescence, or chemical light. This process is already used to detect blood at crime scenes and to determine the concentrations of different components of biological samples. This week in ACS Central Science, researchers introduce a new chemiluminescent probe that is better for use in water and up to 3,000 times brighter than previous probes.