My assignment for this year – photosynthesis is magic

This entry is pitched at the level of people who have no idea what “science” is

but love me enough to be interested in what I am doing.

From September, when I start the masters year of my degree, I will be ferrietting around in a lab working on photosynthesis research. As a result, all I will be babbling about from now until Easter are “light harvesting complexes”.

In a nutshell, plants use sun light, water and carbon dioxide to make energy. The only “waste” product is oxygen.

We’ve all had enough drummed in to us about being green to realise that coming up with a way to produce energy without polluting the world with noxious substances is, like, the Holy Grail. Plants have been doing this for 3,500 million years AND they do it way more efficently than we’ve managed even with all our exhaust-spewing machinery.

The plant does this using a bafflingly complex array of molecular machinery, posssibly a bit of quantum physics and, most likely, magic.
If we can find out exactly how plants manage to do this remarkable feat, it’s a step towards the possibility of being able to power our world in a truly green and eco-friendly way.

So, I will have my little part to play in all this and it’s all rather exciting.