A Beaker Guide to Lucifers

 News in from the States (where else) that a reporter with Newsmax (which else) has claimed Covid vaccines contain luciferase, which she says is being used as trackers. The clue that this is evil being that Lucifer is a name given to the Devil, in the King James version of the Bible. 

"How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!"

 I mean, where to start, really? First up - in the Hebrew the name just means Morning Star. Which we would call Venus. But Latin name means "Light Bearer" - hence lucifer. There's likely all sorts of mythology around this in the Canaanite background.

But that brings us to the chemicals that fireflies etc use to power their glow. Luciferins. Given the same Latin derivation, of light-bearer. 

But luciferins aren't used in the day time. That would be a waste of energy. So to control their glow, they use enzymes called luciferases. Which like all "ase" enzymes actually break down the things they're named after - amylases break down complex carbohydrates into sugars, proteases break down proteins into amino acids and so on. So if luciferases were really in anyway related to Old Nick, they would break him down. Which is a good thing.

It also means that if luciferases were to be used to track you, you'd glow in the dark.

So a quick guide for you:

Lucifer: A name for the Morning Star, boxes of matches, or possibly the Devil. Also more popular than Nigel.

Luciferin: The power source chemicals for a firefly.

Luciferase: Enzymes that oxidise luciferin to create light.

Luciferade: What to make if life gives you Lucifers.