Meet the Lampyridae (or firefly)

One of my favorite aspects about science is that since it's an attempt to discover how the world works, we can't assume that our a prioris and preconceived notions and expectations will be confirmed by new discoveries, or even that we could easily foresee whether and how some discoveries might turn out to be relevant to us.

Take a pretty basic and interesting question: what's up with fireflies? Why do they glow? Well, it turns out that when scientists try to answer that seemingly simple question, they end up coming up with applications that could literally save your life one day, as the following animation shows:

I totally want a glowing hamster now :)