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Frog Foam Photosynthesis
Garrett Fox writes "University of Cincinnati researchers describe a method of getting photosynthesis from a high-surface-area foam containing enzymes that produce sugar using light and CO2 (abstract). Oddly, the foam itself is derived from a species of frog. More interesting is that the technique doesn't use whole cells or apparently even chloroplasts. The researchers claim 'chemical conversion efficiencies approaching 96%,' as well as tolerance for deliberately high-CO2 environments."
I wonder if this has implications for making closed ecological systems easier?
Wikipedia claims that plants only have something like a 3-6% photosynthetic efficiency.
TFA is so brief that we might as well just post it:
We present a cell-free artificial photosynthesis platform that couples the requisite enzymes of the Calvin cycle with a nanoscale photophosphorylation system engineered into a foam architecture using the Tngara frog surfactant protein Ranaspumin-2. This unique protein surfactant allowed lipid vesicles and coupled enzyme activity to be concentrated to the microscale Plateau channels of the foam, directing photoderived chemical energy to the singular purpose of carbon fixation and sugar synthesis, with chemical conversion efficiencies approaching 96%.
If I'm reading that right, the frog connection isn't really part of the photosynthesis cycle. It's there to provide more surface area and channel the various bits of the reaction together, but the reaction itself is well known. It's part of the regular plant-based photosynthesis.
So it's a nice bit of chemical engineering, but the headline "frog foam photosynthesis" is deeply misleading: the frogs don't photosynthesize, and one of their chemicals is being put to a novel purpose.
you lick the frog...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
ribbit!
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
University of Cincinnati article about frog foam and photsynthesis.
To reduce crime, make fewer things against the law.
If it decays after a couple minutes, I will not be impressed.
If this process could provide high amounts of photosynthesis in or near zero gravity. Then it could be intermingled with a hydroponics dome in a space station, creating long term food.
In a space stations' hydroponic dome, put this foam in a holding tank with reflective mirrors along the side walls and submerged inside the foam. Then place focal mirrors to beam sun light directly into the tank. Using photo sensitive circuitry to adjust mirrors for the right amount of sun light.
So frog foam converts light and CO2 into sugar, and yeast converts sugar to alcohol and CO2, it stands to reason that light is alcohol. Now I understand why they call it Light Beer!
Phenomenally fantastic!
Of course NONE of the "science reporting" articles give the quantum efficiency, and the actual journal article costs $30.
Seastead this.
A similar paper had been published in the WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on ENVIRONMENT and DEVELOPMENT in 2006. I do not remember exactly this paper but it was also about photosynthesis from a high-surface-area foam containing enzymes that produce sugar using light and CO2 ....
A similar paper have been published in the WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on ENVIRONMENT and DEVELOPMENT in 2006 or WSEAS Transactions on Biology. I do not remember exactly this paper but it was also about photosynthesis from a high-surface-area foam containing enzymes that produce sugar using light and CO2 ....
However, these good ideas are in the imagination of the scientists until and I do not believe that they will realize them before 2030. Maybe, we will need more time to see them in our real life.