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Fundamental Breakthrough in Understanding Photosynthesis?
From Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, April 12, 2007:
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/...m-secrets.html "Quantum Secrets of Photosynthesis Revealed" BERKELEY, CA -Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. Speed is the key - the transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously so little energy is wasted as heat. How photosynthesis achieves this near instantaneous energy transfer is a long-standing mystery that may have finally been solved. Scientific American has a news summary about this research: http://tinyurl.com/25sfdl or http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...4&chanID=sa003 As does the journal Nature (in which the full article will be published). "Knowing how plants and bacteria harvest light for photosynthesis so efficiently could provide a clean solution to mankind's energy requirements. The secret, it seems, may be the coherent application of quantum principles....": http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/446740a.html PhysicsWeb also has a piece: http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/4/10/1 Quite interesting.... -- Brett http://www.100bestwebsites.org/ "The 100 finest sites on the Web, all in one place!" Widely-watched non-profit ranking of top Internet sites |
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