Plants 'do maths' and 'seen doing quantum physics'

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22991838

Plants have a built-in capacity to do maths, which helps them regulate food reserves at night, research suggests.

UK scientists say they were "amazed" to find an example of such a sophisticated arithmetic calculation in biology.

Mathematical models show that the amount of starch consumed overnight is calculated by division in a process involving leaf chemicals, a John Innes Centre team reports in e-Life journal.

Plants 'seen doing quantum physics'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22996054

But the new study has been done painstakingly, aiming lasers at single molecules of the light-harvesting machinery to show how light is funnelled to the so-called reaction centres within plants where light energy is converted into chemical energy.

What has surprised even the researchers behind the research is not only that these coherences do indeed exist, but that they also seem to change character, always permitting photons to take the most efficient path into the reaction centres.

Kevster

Read this with interest, as I had devoted a lot of effort into understanding how photosynthesic energy transduction works... ... while saying this, I hate the way that they've advertised it as plants 'doing' math or quantum physics

Capt'n Midnight

re photosynthesis

Early Earth Was Purple, Study Suggests
http://www.livescience.com/1398-early-earth-purple-study-suggests.html

Kevster

Very interesting! I do believe there are still some purple plants in existence today, but I had never wondered about the differences between them and the green ones.

Has anyone ever looked at using photosynthesis on a grand scale to harness energy for human use...? Probably miniscule amounts of energy

Capt'n Midnight

Kevster wrote: »

Very interesting! I do believe there are still some purple plants in existence today, but I had never wondered about the differences between them and the green ones.

Has anyone ever looked at using photosynthesis on a grand scale to harness energy for human use...? Probably miniscule amounts of energy

Photosynthesis in plants is ~1% efficient at best when you take into account all the loses, like plants respiring at night.

The best solar panels are over 44%.


The trick of photosysthesis is splitting water

EoghanIRL

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Photosynthesis in plants is ~1% efficient at best when you take into account all the loses, like plants respiring at night.

The best solar panels are over 44%.


The trick of photosysthesis is splitting water

That's hyrdroylsis right? 1/2 oxygen molecule + 2h + 2e- = h2o .
How does this actually happen ?