Bioluminiscent sponge gives new ideas to scientists and engineers
 

A bioluminiscent sponge helps researchers to make glass without a furnace, to develop better buildings and building materials and to develop new improved optical fibers:

Adaptive Material Technologies : Wyss Institute at Harvard


Venus' Flower Basket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seems they are not actually bioluminescent, but they catch bacteria which are.

Yes, and then they transmit the light through their whole structure, illuminating it. These sponges transmit light better than man made optical fibres.

More about sponges and light:

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Nature's 'fibre optics' experts

Hmm, if they have a glass-like structure then this really is similar to fibre :)

It's amazing how many designs are inspired by biology - after all, biological structures are optimised over millions of years while humans have only been doing it for decades. I hope these can be applied to improve designs for communication :)