Braun heads Revolution Bioengineering, a Colorado based startup that is bringing the power of synthetic biology to everyday horticulture. And the possibilities are truly mind-blowing. Gardeners could begin to change plant colors on-demand, and grow plants that take on different hues depending on the time of day. Is manipulating flower colors a, well, useful invention? We have our doubts, though Braun makes a decent case. The flowers are advertising the wider possibilities of synthetic biology in the home, he says. Braun sees opportunities to produce alternative air fresheners where plants are engineered to produce certain popular smells, like, say, vanilla. (Ironically, other startups are working on the opposite problem: reproducing the scent of natural flowers using genetically engineered yeast.) Floral technologies could also be applied to commodity plants like cotton and cannabis.