When the Earth Was Purple

Ollabelle writes "It's always been a bit of a mystery why plants absorb red and blue light, reflecting green, when the sun emits the peak energy of the visible spectrum in the green. A new theory offers one possible answer: that the first chlorophyll-utilizing microbes evolved to exploit the red-and-blue light that older green-absorbing microbes didn't use, eventually out-competing them through greater efficiency and the rise of oxygen."

Comments

And then the dinosaurs came

[iminplaya]

but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes. I couldn't believe it.

Re:And then the dinosaurs came

[iminplaya]

(Score:-1, Offtopic)

"Um, I already gave my best, and I have no regrets at all."

Re:Plants on other planets

[shokk]

You're looking at it all wrong. We're not really looking for other star races to join in a galactic alliance. We're looking for a new home in the hopes that we won't all be extinct before we've developed the technology to leap to other stars. Ironically, it is the development of this tech that will make this, our first home, the polluted cesspool that no one will want to live on. May God have mercy on any inhabitants of that planet once we get there.