Why some Civil War wounds glowed in the dark

A closer look

When you're bleeding out in a trench, turning into a glow-stick is probably the last thing you want. At the Battle of Shiloh, soldiers lying in the freezing mud noticed their horrific wounds emitting a faint blue glow. It was dubbed 'Angel's Glow', as those who glowed actually had higher survival rates. The culprit was Photorhabdus luminescens, a weird dirt bacteria that effectively sanitized the wounds while emitting light.