Latest Light-dependent reactions Stories

Photosynthesis - The Last Link In The Chain
2013-01-05 05:45:05

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online For almost three decades, scientists have tried to identify a particular enzyme involved in regulating electron transport during photosynthesis. Now, a research team from Ludwig Maximilians Universitat (LMU) has found the missing link, which turns out to be not so new. All life on Earth is sustained by photosynthesis, a sunlight powered process that provides energy-rich compounds and the molecular oxygen that higher organisms depend...

2011-11-30 04:43:34

A biomimetic antenna for gathering sunlight may one day transform solar-powered devices. Sometimes when people talk about solar energy, they tacitly assume that we´re stuck with some version of the silicon solar cell and its technical and cost limitations. Not so. The invention of the solar cell, in 1941, was inspired by a newfound understanding of semiconductors, materials that can use light energy to create mobile electrons–and ultimately an electrical current....

2011-05-12 22:41:16

In a head-to-head battle of harvesting the sun's energy, solar cells beat plants, according to a new paper in Science. But scientists think they can even up the playing field, says researcher David Kramer at Michigan State University. Plants are less efficient at capturing the energy in sunlight than solar cells mostly because they have too much evolutionary baggage. Plants have to power a living thing, whereas solar cells only have to send electricity down a wire. This is a big difference...

2011-05-12 22:12:16

"I have a slide that has a photo of a cornfield and a big photovoltaic array," says Robert Blankenship, a scientist who studies photosynthesis at Washington University in St. Louis. "When I give talks I often ask the audience which one is more efficient. Invariably the audience votes overwhelmingly in favor of photosynthesis. " They are wrong. This question and its surprising answer (below) is the point of departure for a provocative article published in the May 13 issue of Science. The...

2009-05-04 16:00:00

A U.S.-led international team of scientists says it has determined the structure of chlorophyll molecules in green bacteria that harvest light energy. The researchers said their findings might one day be used to build artificial photosynthetic systems, such as those that convert solar energy to electrical energy. We found that the orientation of the chlorophyll molecules make green bacteria extremely efficient at harvesting light, said Pennsylvania State University Professor Donald Bryant,...

2005-08-29 14:25:00

Blacksburg, Va. -- Chemists are several steps closer to teasing hydrogen fuel from water using man-made molecular devices that collect electrons and use them to split hydrogen from oxygen. Virginia Tech graduate students in chemistry will present two posters at the 230th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., Aug. 28 through Sept. 1, 2005, describing photochemical processes. Electrons are negatively charged particles that allow atoms to react and form bonds....

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This comes from the Russian word for 'bachelors.'