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Quantum Mechanics Involved In Photosynthesis

Posted by samzenpus on from the spooky-cycle dept.

Kristina at Science News writes "We all learn about photosynthesis in school: sunlight in, plant food out. Not well understood is how this process achieves its initial and uniquely high efficiency in capturing the energy of a photon. Quantum mechanics may be at work in the electron transfer process inside chloroplast, giving electrons the chance to consider many paths at once before choosing the best one."

4 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. DO NOT Travel to U.S.A: +1, Elevated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    If you care about your health , DON'T travel to U.S.A.
    This will accomplish two things: (1) Keep you healthy and
    (2) Prevent tourist dollars from buffering U.S.A. economic
    collapse.

    Thanks for your PatRIOTism.

    Yours In Socialism,
    Kilgore Trout

  2. Re:That's Some Mighty Fine Learnin' Kristina by DriedClexler · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Nothing to say about the story, but CAN YOU MORON EDITORS STOP FUCKING UP MY SLASHDOT??? Please, for the love of all that is good, STOP adding "enhancements" to the page, and LET ME HAVE MY GODDAMN CLASSIC SLASHDOT LOOK BACK!!!!

    --
    Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  3. Re:That's Some Mighty Fine Learnin' Kristina by DriedClexler · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The fact that I was modded up just shows how pissed off people are in general about the stupid, Vistaesque crap they keep piling on, since merely voicing my dissatisfaction gets me modded up to five.

    Where to fucking start? First of all, despite all the customizability, there isn't even an option to go back to how it was before they started fucking everything up. Second of all, it overloads my cpu with processes so that I have to have a relatively new computer just to browse without clawing my eyeballs out. Gee guys, why is it an atrocity for new Windows releases to force you to upgrade to bleeding edge hardware, but Slashdot wants to hog all of my computer's resources for a fucking text-only discussion site!

    Third, it's breaking normal browser functionality. When I hit "back", I want to fucking go to the previous page, not the last one I was on before you slurped me into your glammed-up ajax bullshit. Fourth, it hides most of the day's stories, so you get to play a guessing game to figure out where the last story you were looking at went -- what magic button do I have to hit to get back to it?

    Fifth, any computer with half-decent security or script blocking (read: computers at work) disables enough of the cutesiness you're trying to pimp, that the page looks like an "under construction" site, circa 1995.

    Sixth, did I mention how it doesn't let me "opt out" of this bullshit fanciness, cooked up my some meth-addled former Apple employees?

    --
    Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  4. Re:All chemistry, most physics by lazy+genes · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I have a model that works for gravity. Take some algae and put it in a sealed glass jar. Spin the jar every couple days and keep it out of direct sunlight. In a few months you will start to see bubbles forming on the algae or the algae floating on top of the water. It will rise to the top of the water and then fall back to the bottom and stay there for a couple weeks and then pop back to the surface again. if you chart this you will see that it rises on full and new moons. So can the algae feel the fabric of space time bending?????