Hacked Photosynthesis Could Boost Crop Fields
by Heidi Ledford Sept. 19, 2014
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Source: Scientific American
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Summary: For plants the process of photosynthesis is an easy thing to do for them. Researchers have taken a step forward on enhancing photosynthesis by “engineering plants with enzymes from bluegreen algae that speed up the process of converting carbon dioxide into sugars.” The results were that it boosted the growth of plant fields. Their goal is to increase the importance of the world as the population increases. The researchers used Rubisco, which is the enzyme that’s responsible for converting carbon dioxide into sugar. It is also known for the abundant protein on Earth and accounted as half of the soluble protein found in a leaf. It can increase 60% in the yield of crops such as rice and wheat. However, it is more likely to waste energy by reacting with oxygen rather than CO2. “Photosynthetic bacteria overcome this problem by creating specialized structures called carboxysomes, which enclose the enzyme and create a CO2 rich environment, discouraging wasteful reactions.”
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Reflection: While reading this article it made me think on how we try to make changes and no matter if we success, it'll only last for short time. Because we can't speed up nature, nature does its own thing. If we try to make difference there will always be situations on where we end up affecting the ecosystem and that ends up affecting us. We should just let photosynthesis do it's own naturaly thing and change our ways /activities.
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