Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Aim To Improve Photosynthesis
vasanth writes "Two new initiatives at the University of Cambridge aim to address the growing demand on the Earth's resources for food and fuel by improving the process of photosynthesis. Four transatlantic research teams – two of which include academics from Cambridge's Department of Plant Sciences – will explore ways to overcome limitations in photosynthesis which could then lead to ways of significantly increasing the yield of important crops for food production or sustainable bioenergy. Despite the fact that photosynthesis is the basis of energy capture from the sun in plants, algae and other organisms, it has some fundamental limitations. There are trade-offs in nature which mean that photosynthesis is not as efficient as it could be – for many important crops such as wheat, barley, potatoes and sugar beet, the theoretical maximum is only 5%, depending on how it is measured. There is scope to improve it for processes useful to us, for example increasing the amount of food crop or energy biomass a plant can produce from the same amount of sunlight."
Day of the Triffids starts?
A similar story was posted not too long ago..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
They should work on a pigment that absorbs useful light in the yellow-green band of the spectrum. Some of the inefficiency of photosynthesis comes from the fact that it only absorbs visible light in two narrow bands of the spectrum.
Seems to me it'd be simpler to solve the world's food resource problem by figuring out how the plants do it... then cut out the middle man and do it ourselves. Screw farming... I'll be at the beach.
The Admin and the Engineer
This is a horrible, horrible idea. If you make photosynthesis more efficient, plants won't have to spend all their time generating food. A few hours a day, and they'll have all they need. Soon enough, plants will have more free time than they know what to do with. They'll wake up in the morning, spend a couple of hours making sugar, and spend the rest of the day sitting in coffee shops and arguing about the finer points of whatever passes for philosophy among the members of the plant kingdom.
Eventually, various collectives will form based on commonalities of ideas and who is rooted near what coffee shop. Sure, most of these collectives will concern themselves primarily with taking drugs and producing regrettable artworks, but eventually some of them will start to ponder their lot in life at the constant mercy of mankind. This will lead to the writing of lengthy treatises on the Rights of Plants and how they are constantly being trod upon (often quite literally) by man. After that, it's only a matter of time before they rise up under the banner of the Glorious Plant Revolution and kill us all.
Honestly, the last thing we can afford to do is make plants more efficient.
One of the things that always bugged me about zombie flicks was how the zombies seemed to be able to run perpetually without a steady source of energy ( ie: brains...or anything else ). Now it makes sense. The zombification process obviously employs a type of photosynthesis. This is further confirmed by the seemingly universal trope that zombies are most active during the day time.
In either case, it has begun. This research will mutate with the common cold virus, resulting in a zombieland.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Cambridge is one, what are the others?
Sorry guys, you're a bit behind. I'm already producing multiple crops with zero light, and some crops I simply bypass photosynthesis by directly feeding the system the energy required to finish off the process, minus the involvement of a photon in any step.
But I'll never get a /. article. That's okay, /. has been well known to not tap its own natural resource for news, which is why they had to implement ads in the first place. Had Taco realized the potential of his base, he'd be richer than Zuckerman right now with the access he has to future technologies.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I vaguely remember eating a slice of cheesecake.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I can't tell if you're being serious, or imitating someone who seriously thinks like that for the purposes of a joke.
Feeding grain to animals in concentrated animal feeding operations is stupid. Farms should be run by farmers, NOT "absentee landlords" (like my dad & his two siblings, who inherited some ~200 acres from their parents. Grandma grew up on her farm, while Grandpa's parents owned their farm but never worked it). From the second link:
Many of humanity's health problems stem from the inappropriate use of grain crops. Grain-finished cattle have a fraction of the beta carotene and vitamin A as grass-finished beef.
Feeding cattle directly on land currently used to grow soybeans & corn would be a lot more productive. But I don't think all the "farmers" (who really just hire tenants to plant crops) would approve.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Kudzu!
Yet you use a computer and perform frivolous activities like browse internet comments. I can't think of a more pointless use of cancer-causing electricity and throw-away goods.
By "addressing the growing demand on the Earth's resources for food" they are not creating a solution for 2030.
They are creating a HUGE problem for 2050.
The world is already overpopulated and this problem is only getting worse with each year.
If you want to address the "growing demand on the Earth's resources for food" make the demand stop growing - this is the real problem here.
Why don't scientist focus on a way to stop population growth instead?
I'm no botanist, but I've seen Japanese maples and rainbow Swiss chard. I've also read enough Dawkins and Ridley to understand that even extremely complex biological evolution is not only possible but inevitable. If photosynthesis can be improved, it probably would have been. If we increase photosynthetic efficiency, what are we trading? TAANSTAFL, and all that.
Just what we need: Make hydroponic pot production even more efficient!
Look I'm very VERY much for kicking our fossil fuel addiction that causes global warming and is directly funding terrorism (republican appointed defense secretary Gates said most financial support for Taliban/Al Queda comes from gulf states not drug trafficking) but using crops for biofuels is not the way to go. Aside from the fact that some fuels (ethanol from corn) may require MORE energy to produce than is harvested, there are serious ethical issues when you have American S.U.V. drivers competing directly with sub-Saharan african peasants for a life sustaining resource. For one thing it connects the global food market with the monopolistic oil pricing strategies of our friends (sarcasm) from the middle east. (I was at a talk given by the president of ASEAN who represents some of the largest rice exporting countries in the world like Thailand and Vietnam. When asked if they had thought about setting up a cartel like OPEC but with rice not oil he remarked that there were serious ethical issues to consider if you were going to use as a weapon the basic foodstuff of hundreds of millions.)
The powerful political farming interests would just love to see their product fueling our cars. (I keep seeing this commercial on Discovery TV implying the average westerner utilizes 120 TIMES as much energy in maintaining their lifestyle as they do eating). Clearly even if crops were net energy positive (after fertilizers, transport, fermentation, etc.) using them in this way would send the price into the stratosphere. Renewable solar technology MUST be used (sorry, but let's face it Nukes are not going to have a renaissance in the West at least :(. Hopefully photovoltaics or something like the "artificial leaf" can generate carbon zero fuels at a much higher efficiency (supposedly 10x natural photosynthesis which, as this article confirms, is appallingly inefficient). More importantly, placed in the deserts or other areas not suitable for farming they won't compete with the crops we need to LIVE.
I'm really not against fossil fuels, I'd really like to see us get some oil from the tar sands those nice Canadians have, or tap into the abundance of natural gas or even go after the HUGE undersea deposits of methane clathrates. HOWEVER, we've really got to do this WHILE keeping the carbon impact zero (or negative!). This is possible, there are a number of carbon sequestration technologies that should be able to do this (there was a recent Sci-Amer. article on this) while only consuming a fraction of the energy gained from burning it. Until that's demonstrated and put into place though, we should really be focusing on renewable technologies until nuclear fusion comes online to save our butts in 20 years. ;)
Why only play?
We already have the technology necessary to prevent world hunger, it's called birth control. Are there any charities I can fund that aim to distribute birth control to poor countries? Because I would give money to that cause
Monstar L
Wouldn't this contribute to the already important problem of desertification?
If plans in the same area will be able to produce more bio-mass per squared meter, then the soil will be deprived of nitrogen and other nutrients faster, accelerating the process of desertification.
You can of course tell me that fertilising those lands will solve the problem, but fertilisers have their own problems on the long run, specially inorganic ones.
It does sound interesting for hydroponic cultivation and, why not, space farming.
Instead of making more efficient crops, we could simply breed less. That would make most of the problems in India and China go away in about 30 years.
Why bother? If people just stopped having so many sodding kids there'd be no need for this. Will we not stop till ever inch of the planet is rammed full of people?
There's nothing clever about this. We're behaving like lemmings, and things like this will only help us drive ourselves over the cliff. The endless growth of humanity is not desirable.
Photosynthesis is one of the oldest processes of life. I'm sure that if it could be improved without adverse effects to the plants, it would have happened through evolution.
For fuel production, I think it would be better to find out how to make our own technical version of photosynthesis, producing directly the fuel we need without wasting some of the energy for keeping an organism alive.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Bad idea if this is supposed to be for food. It's very arrogant and sociopathic to think you can make such a change, and then feed it to innocent people - not certain if there are serious implications. Reality has proven that there are few real shortcuts (there is always a trade-off). Research has been included and you are welcome to investigate this information for yourself.
... Pathology Branch's Evaluat
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been linked to thousands of toxic or allergic-type reactions, thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals. [Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, Yes! Books, Fairfield, IA USA 2007] Herbicide tolerant soy, corn, cotton, and canola plants are engineered with bacterial genes that allow them to survive otherwise deadly doses of herbicides. Herbicide tolerant crops comprise about 80% of all GM plants. The other 20% are corn and cotton varieties that produce a pesticide in every cell. This is accomplished due to a gene from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt, which produces a natural insect-killing poison called Bt-toxin. We ingest these pesticides.
FDA internal memos made public from a lawsuit showed that the overwhelming consensus among the agency scientists was that GM crops can have unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects. Various departments and experts spelled these out in detail, listing allergies, toxins, nutritional effects, and new diseases as potential dangers. They urged superiors to require long-term safety studies. [For copies of FDA memos, see The Alliance for Bio-Integrity, www.biointegrity.org ]
There are several reasons why GM plants present unique dangers. The first is that the process of genetic engineering itself creates unpredicted alterations, irrespective of which gene is transferred. The gene insertion process, for example, is accomplished by either shooting genes from a "gene gun" into a plate of cells, or using bacteria to infect the cell with foreign DNA. Both create mutations in and around the insertion site and elsewhere. [J. R. Latham, et al., "The Mutational Consequences of Plant Transformation," The Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology 2006, Article ID 25376: 1-7; see also Allison Wilson, et. al., "Transformation-induced mutations in transgenic plants: Analysis and biosafety implications," Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Reviews – Vol. 23, December 2006] The "transformed" cell is then cloned into a plant through a process called tissue culture, which results in additional hundreds or thousands of mutations throughout the plants' genome. In the end, the GM plant's DNA can be a staggering 2-4% different from its natural parent (which is a LOT).
Although the FDA scientists evaluating GMOs in 1992 were unaware of the extent to which GM DNA is damaged or changed, they too described the potential consequences. They reported, "The possibility of unexpected, accidental changes in genetically engineered plants" might produce "unexpected high concentrations of plant toxicants." [Edwin J. Mathews, Ph.D., in a memorandum to the Toxicology Section of the Biotechnology Working Group. Subject: Analysis of the Major Plant Toxicants. Dated October 28, 1991] GM crops, they said, might have "increased levels of known naturally occurring toxins," and the "appearance of new, not previously identified" toxins. [Division of Food Chemistry and Technology and Division of Contaminants Chemistry, "Points to Consider for Safety Evaluation of Genetically Modified Foods: Supplemental Information," November 1, 1991]
The very first crop submitted to the FDA's voluntary consultation process, the FlavrSavr tomato, showed evidence of toxins. Out of 20 female rats fed the GM tomato, 7 developed stomach lesions. [Department of Veterinary Medicine, FDA, correspondence June 16, 1993. As quoted in Fred A. Hines, Memo to Dr. Linda Kahl. "Flavr Savr Tomato:
The argument: nature has been trying it for 3.5 billion years. And it's still at 5%, with a such complex solution as clorophile. (If that was designed by a human, I'd say it is a masterpiece). So - for solar cells, maybe because we aren't limited to organical chemistry. But for organisms, this chance is small (although I agree that some solutions might be be unreachable by the evolution, so htey need intelligent design, i.e. our brains).
I live in Brazil and the culture of the sugar cane is a common practice in the quest for green energy, here we bought alcohol from sugar cane to supply our cars
Stop illegal aliens and slow immigrants from going to nations where they already have a low birthrate. That will put pressure on nations who have not learned to control their own birthrates.
Then fund protestants to convert roman catholics,mormons and muslims. Once you do that, then you will get ppl to use birth control and look beyond their church.
Finally, figure out how to slow down Africa.
Good luck with that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Does it really matter? Either way it's hilarious.
I have nothing against GM crops to some degree, but I have to wonder if this is a great idea.
Every facet of a species' evolution is toward making it more successful in its environment. Clearly, these species have settled on a 5% efficiency as 'good enough' - not (Darwinistically) willing to trade-off higher efficiencies to lose some other feature.
Are there other grasses that run at higher efficiencies? (Is sugar cane a grass?)
Anyone know what the photosynthesis efficiencies are for the ORIGINAL versions of these food-grasses? I know that what we look at as wheat is significantly different than it originally evolved.
Further, last time I checked, there is no shortage of FOOD on this planet. The issue about global food shortages is a matter of politics and distribution, NOT the ability to grow enough food.
Finally, and I know this is controversial, but in terms of the poorest regions - are we really helping them if we provide them more sources of cheap food? Haven't they already demonstrated that they'll promptly just breed past the point of sustainability when they can? How do we believe that the next generations will behave differently? Won't higher-food-content grains just lower the price of food in the developed world further, making it even harder to be anything but a giant industrialized corporate farm?
-Styopa
I have no idea what I am talking about, but perhaps Green spots would allow for "columns" of penetration which given their 3d nature would really increase the absorptive "surface" area.
I guess maybe the best option is to simply look in nature, at different configurations, and try and measure which is the most efficient and why. Assuming somewhat uniform internal photosynthesis mechanisms, one could then deduce other factors such as colour, shape, size, etc...
Nature is perfect? Only humans cause bad things to happen in nature? Cancer isn't natural? LMAO you should go on tour!
If you knew more about nature, you'd know that nature is less like a Disney cartoon and more like an H.R. Geiger fever dream. But your naivete is so cute, don't ever change! ^_^
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Even if you can double output; the population growth even without the gains in food production is going to be higher than the rate of increased production. This means only a small period of time will exist where production gains actually help everybody before the population growth rate overcomes it and surpasses it.
Overpopulation is the problem people do not want to address. All such talk about distribution is shallow because it doesn't matter if you evenly distribute all the food in a Marxist fashion regardless of production and distribution costs because again, population growth will continue outpace production and the starvation will slowly increase for all evenly.
Utopian equal food for all plans are not realistic or feasible long term. Overpopulation is the problem and doesn't stop naturally until significant numbers DIE -- or in our case, being "thinking" creatures we could plan ahead and avoid the unpleasant reality of letting the problem solve itself.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Obviously some poor Slashdotter was camping and was about to make a comment but then he was attacked and killed by a bear. RIP AC.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"Nature" isn't intelligent, it just does what works. Imagine a startup company that hacks together a web site for a demo, soon that is the production version. Eventually the main website is based on a hack. A complete redesign just will never be in the budget, nor will it be viable as long as the hack is being maintained.
That describes perfectly what is going on in plants. Nobody in the comments has mentioned RuBisCO (although TFA does), but RuBisCO that is one of the most significant bottlenecks. Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase (RuBisCO) is a protein that binds CO2 but it is competitively inhibited by O2. Because it evolved at a time when the earth's atmosphere had far more CO2 than it does now, it worked. Since the CO2 has gotten more sparse, rather than do a redesign, plants just produce more Rubisco. They make ALOT of RuBisCO; roughly 30% of the protein in a leaf is RuBisCO. If a version of RuBisCO could be engineered or modified to exclude oxygen, or even to slightly reduce oxygen affinity, plants could be orders of magnitude more efficient both in their nitrogen use (make less RuBisCO) and in their carbon fixation.
In TFA, the scientists are approaching this by attempting to have the plant concentrate CO2 near RuBisCO. Perhaps a better strategy since it is based on existent biology.
people are without jobs due to over zealous industrialists. even more are without food due to over zealous industrialists. so the solution is to turn plants into over zealous industrialists?
why not just start sustainable farms on a large scale to employ people and have them produce food that isn't the result of lab work, but rather of experiential growth and development?
i know i know, how radical.
welcome our photosynthetic overlords.