EvC Forum: Hacking Photosynthesis

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Topic: Hacking Photosynthesis

Phat

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From: Denver,Colorado USA

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Message 1 of 4 (846315)
01-04-2019 2:25 AM

Scientists... In Search Of More Productive Crops

Scientists Have 'Hacked Photosynthesis' In Search Of More Productive Crops

This was at NPR.

quote:
There's a big molecule, a protein, inside the leaves of most plants. It's called Rubisco, which is short for an actual chemical name that's very long and hard to remember.

Amanda Cavanagh, a biologist and post-doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois, calls herself a big fan of Rubisco. "It's probably the most abundant protein in the world," she says. It's also super-important.(...)Cavanagh and her colleagues in a research program called Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), which is based at the University of Illinois, have spent the last five years trying to fix Rubisco's problem. "We're sort of hacking photosynthesis," she says.

Interesting. Perhaps one eventual solution for global crop yield.

they created super tobacco plants. "They grew faster, and they grew up to 40 percent bigger" than normal tobacco plants, Cavanagh says. These measurements were done both in greenhouses and open-air field plots.

The scientists now are trying to do the same thing with plants that people actually rely on for food, like tomatoes and soybeans. They (are) also working with cowpeas, or black-eyed peas, "because it's a staple food crop for a lot of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, which is where our funders are interested in making the biggest impact," Cavanagh says.

Comments?

Edited by AdminPhat, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
	Message 2 by Pressie, posted 01-04-2019 4:43 AM		Phat has replied

Pressie

Member (Idle past 140 days)

Posts: 2103

From: Pretoria, SA

Joined: 06-18-2010

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Message 2 of 4 (846317)
01-04-2019 4:43 AM

Reply to: Message 1 by Phat
01-04-2019 2:25 AM

Re: Scientists... In Search Of More Productive Crops

Interesting. Do you know much about those photosynthesising sea slugs they found in the Mediterranean? (I can't remember the name or the source where I read about them).

Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
	Message 1 by Phat, posted 01-04-2019 2:25 AM		Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
	Message 3 by Phat, posted 01-04-2019 6:17 AM		Pressie has replied

Phat

Member

Posts: 18523

From: Denver,Colorado USA

Joined: 12-30-2003

Member Rating: 1.7

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Message 3 of 4 (846318)
01-04-2019 6:17 AM

Reply to: Message 2 by Pressie
01-04-2019 4:43 AM

Re: Scientists... In Search Of More Productive Crops

not really. I usually stumble across this stuff in the course of my daily perusing of articles. ...*googles*.....well, apart from some suspiciously spammy articles, I found this:
Solar powered sea slugs shed light on search for perpetual green energy but I'm reading about it just now.

Add by edit: I found another article corroborating the topic starter:
Scientists engineer shortcut for photosynthetic glitch, boost crop growth by 40 percent.

The internet has a glut of information, but unlike the encyclopedias I grew up with, one has to more readily discriminate and separate the wheat from the chaff.

Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith

You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

Subjectivism may very well undermine Christianity.
In the same way that "allowing people to choose what they want to be when they grow up" undermines communism.~Stile

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Pressie

Member (Idle past 140 days)

Posts: 2103

From: Pretoria, SA

Joined: 06-18-2010

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Message 4 of 4 (846321)
01-04-2019 6:45 AM

Reply to: Message 3 by Phat
01-04-2019 6:17 AM

Re: Scientists... In Search Of More Productive Crops

I thought so. In the same article it was mentioned that the researcher kept it a secret for 20 years before publishing something, somewhere. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark with that one.

Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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