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Scientists Have 'Hacked Photosynthesis' in Search of More Productive Crops
- dreen 8y agoThe article focuses on GMO food production which is great. But since this process is said to be more efficient than the natural one, could this be also used for consuming the excess carbon dioxide in our air?
- akanet 8y agoI mean, in the sense that any plant that grows consumes carbon dioxide as long as we don't turn around and burn it, yes. Biohacking any particular species to express a particular trait isn't exactly solved yet, though.
- CapitalistCartr 8y agoI've long wondered if we could do to blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria) what we've done to Penicillium fungi, mutating like crazy, to optimize for CO2 absorbtion, then bury the mass.
- Angostura 8y ago> bury the mass Or burn it - at least it would be a sustainable energy source.
- PakG1 8y agoCreate a carbon cycle similar to the water cycle then?
- schiffern 8y agoAlready exists. We've now identified many biogeochemical cycles. An incomplete list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silica_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silica_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonate-silicate_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonate-silicate_cycle
- gdpgreg 8y agoEasier to just burry it, treating it for use in combustion systems wouldn't be worth it given the energy density is low. Better off using Sabatier process with excess solar at that point.
- nanomonkey 8y agoYou can also feed it to people and livestock. I've been growing Spirulina, a cyanobacteria, in aquarium tanks in my window for eating purposes. It's quite high in protein, antioxidants and beneficial oils. When I get the time, I'll likely also try making some biodiesel and/or gasifying some of it to see how feasible it is as a fuel source.
- indymike 8y agoHere's the question: how does it taste?
- nanomonkey 8y agoFresh, it's pretty tasteless, and quite easy to incorporate raw into other foods such as a smoothy, soup, pesto, or a spread in sandwiches.
- FlyMoreRockets 8y agoYou should also look at Azolla. It grows crazy fast and is also high protein and fixes both carbon and nitrogen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla
- nanomonkey 8y agoThanks, I'll see if I can find some. I'm currently also experimenting with duckweed growing in my backyard, although I find that it doesn't play well with the other aquatic animals and plants, as it appears to smother them out.
- FlyMoreRockets 8y agoIf you have problems with duckweed smothering, azolla will probably be worse. Duckweed has to pull nitrogen from the water, azolla harvests it directly from the air. It makes a good feedstock and fertilizer though.
- greendesk 8y agoTo make a differenece in CO2 consumtion, a large area has to be planted. On a global scale, think Sahara-area size. At such scales, the limiting factor would be the nutrient availibility in soil. So, such GMO might play a role; albeit not as the main factor.
- greendesk 8y agoTo add: the change might play a role jn smaller emissions from normal agriculture.
- ForHackernews 8y agoThis is correct, but it's also accurate to say that land-management will need to play a role in mitigating climate change (to the extent that's still possible): https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/08/29/improving-soil-quality-can-slow-global-warming/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/08/29/improving-soil-quality-...
- pdm55 8y agoMore efficient might mean less CO2 consumed to simply produce an identical plant. Would have to trial it. Assume this genetic manipulation might even stunt growth in some species. Again would need trials. I cannot find the particular article I was looking for regarding withered leaves that plagued a long-term (10+ years) genetic manipulation project in sugar cane, but here is a list of problems I found: http://natureinstitute.org/nontarget/browse_titles.htm http://natureinstitute.org/nontarget/browse_titles.htm From my observation of friends who were doing genetic manipulation of plants, it is not easy.
- gus_massa 8y agoFrom the article: > And they created super tobacco plants. "They grew faster, and they grew up to 40 percent bigger" than normal tobacco plants, Cavanagh says. These measurements were done both in greenhouses and open-air field plots. The mass of the plant is proportional to the number of Carbons in it, and the Carbons come from CO2, so a 40% of mass increase means something like a 40% increase of CO2 sequestration. [The Carbon content of the plant varies form plant to plant and in each part of the plant, and due to other reasons. The plants are made of Carbon, Hidrogen, Oxigen, and some minor but important atoms like Nitrogen, Phosphorus, ... The backbone of the molecules are made of Carbon, with some Oxygen and Hydrogen on the sides and some Nitrogen sparked here and there. So the proportion of Carbon is in a narrow range. The main exception is water, but the plant doesn't want to be too dry or too diluted internally, so also this is a narrow band.]
- pdm55 8y agoYes, impressive results, but do we really want more tobacco plants? I think the appropriate test will be if the results are transferable to other species. And which ones would make the most sense? Algae, lettuce, spinach, weeds? Weeds make some sort of sense because they are already so resilient, often being the best-adapted plants in a particular environment. But do we want weeds that grow even larger and faster? Scientific research comes with a responsibility to try and anticipate and avoid any unwanted consequences. For instance: Where are the insects? Scientists are trying to figure out what has caused the recent dramatic (80%) decline in insect numbers. One possible culprit may be a newer class of insecticide: "Of particular concern are neonicotinoids, neurotoxins that were thought to affect only treated crops but turned out to accumulate in the landscape and to be consumed by all kinds of nontargeted bugs." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalyps... Oops, the danger of unintended consequences.
- gall 8y agoYes, have a look at the work of Erb, Schwander, and others at the Max Planck institute on the CETCH cycle, for example. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6314/900.full http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6314/900.full https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a23938/fix-carbon-dioxide-useful-products/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a23938/fix-c...
- thinkcontext 8y agoA field crop planted annually that grows faster or bigger isn't likely to make much of a difference to atmospheric CO2 as it will just release it again after harvest. Perennial plants (those that don't need to be planted each year) are better at sequestering CO2 in the soil, along with other benefits. The Land Institute does work on this, including developing (through traditional plant breeding) a perennial wheat variety which is being trialed [0]. There are other agricultural practices that promote CO2 sequestration in the soil. You might have a look at Project Drawdown, it ranks solutions to climate change based on impact and has a section on food [1] which includes agricultural solutions. For example, Silvopasture [1], ranked #9 overall amongst all solutions, involves integrating trees with livestock pasture. Another one is conservation agriculture (#16) which uses annual crops but promotes soil health in selection of species and method and timing of planting [3]. [0] https://landinstitute.org/our-work/perennial-crops/ https://landinstitute.org/our-work/perennial-crops/ [1] https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food [2] https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/silvopasture https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/silvopasture [3] https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/conservation-agriculture https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/conservation-agricul...
- mrfusion 8y agoWhy can’t you take all the leftover biomass after a harvest and sequester it? Then it wouldn’t “simply relaase it”. I’d image we only take a small part of the mass for food.
- Maximus9000 8y agofor which crop? most of the leftover biomass is used in typical crops. For corn, the stalks are used as silage. For wheat, the stalks are used to make straw.
- weberc2 8y ago> For corn, the stalks are used as silage. How common is this? In my area, the combines chew up the stalks and spit them out as chaff. I don't see many people collecting the chaff.
- mabbo 8y agoThe individual plants are probably not enough. To really soak up some carbon at a noticeable level, you need to take a large amount of crop fields and have them go fallow, becoming forests. This has been successfully demonstrated once before by G. Khan et al[0]. [0]https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/jan/26/genghis-khan-eco-warrior https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/jan/26/genghis-...
- systematical 8y agoI thought I had as well. But then you're talking about reengineering whole forests.
- rubyfan 8y agoWhat could possibly go wrong?!
- Majestic121 8y agoA lot of things can go wrong for pretty much any significant technology. Those technologies do require caution, and control, but I think this is still a good step forward, even if it ends up being unusable as is for whatever yet unforeseen reason.
- Ibethewalrus 8y agoReminds me of a story from Tales from the Crypt, about a super-plant, an episode with Stephen King...
- antepodius 8y agoI hate the writing in this. "This protein's super-important!" "Yay for Rubisco!"
- sp332 8y agoHere https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/re-engineering-photosynthesis-gives-plants-a-40-growth-boost/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/re-engineering-photo...
- TheBeardKing 8y agoThanks for sharing, this article is so much better than OP's. It answers a question I posted which the NPR article was very vague on, but Ars covers in detail.
- woodrowbarlow 8y agothe article is basically an edited transcript of the radio interview, where the quotes you mentioned feel much more natural.
- mdf 8y agoThere’s a website for a project aiming to produce a modified version of rice using these improved photosynthesis pathways[1]. Some previous HN discussion on the subject can also be found[2]. Really interesting stuff! [1] https://c4rice.com/ https://c4rice.com/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8867365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8867365
- tomxor 8y agoI wonder - once we start replacing more extensive segments that represent complex functions, not only does it become a less probable natural solution but to steal a term from ML - perhaps there is a danger of temporal "over-fitting"... The natural version maybe sub-optimal in the current climate, but that historical baggage could have evolved to that state because it allowed the continuation of that species through a more diverse range of climates, something that could be useful in the future. There is the potential that forcing a "more efficient" solution for _now_, could be also creating a more fragile and endemic species? Perhaps not even for the distant future, if details in the original in-fact make it better able to cope with subtle climatic variations more efficiently.
- sampo 8y agoCrop plants and livestock animals are already pretty much unable to survive in the wild, outside of farms. So the "overfitting" is as old as farming.
- Gravityloss 8y agoThe dangers of monoculture as well.
- tomxor 8y agoTrue, but this is direct, cultivation is by proxy, and does not necessarily remove unexpressed genes.
- n4r9 8y agoThat's a confusing thing to say... surely GMO doesn't necessarily remove unexpressed genes either? To provide a counterargument, with GMO we additionally have a decent understanding of the underlying mechanics and which genes have changed. This puts us in a better position to correct things if they do turn out to have unintended consequences.
- tomxor 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pillow-case 8y agoIt's neat to see this finally come to fruition (no pun intended). Someone has been anonymously posting about this research for the last few years on 4chan's science board.
- Analemma_ 8y agoOne thing that concerns me about hacking crops to have higher yields is that they may consume more soil nutrients, when we’re already in pretty serious danger of exhausting large patches of arable land. So then we’d need to use a lot more fertilizer, which is already an environmental disaster at its current scale with nitrogen/phosphate runoff. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, unfortunately.
- rdlecler1 8y agoIn nature there is typically no free lunch. Optimizing this may lead to other issues such as lower drought tolerance of less natural pesticide resistance. Although as the author states, photosynthesis isn’t usually a rate limiting factor in nature so it could potentially be optimized.
- TheBeardKing 8y ago>"But it has what we like to call one fatal flaw," Cavanagh continues. Unfortunately, Rubisco isn't picky enough about what it grabs from the air. It also picks up oxygen. "When it does that, it makes a toxic compound, so the plant has to detoxify it." Can someone explain this, the article doesn't go into much detail. What is this toxic compound, and why must the plant make it? edit: Explained in detail in this article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/re-engineering-photosynthesis-gives-plants-a-40-growth-boost/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/re-engineering-photo...
- jessriedel 8y agoThe semi-technical "Perspective" column http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/32 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/32 in the same issue of Science is also excellent while still being more accessible than the main technical article. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/eaat9077 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/eaat9077
- lightedman 8y agoYou can obtain higher production simply by switching to red/blue LEDs in the greenhouse and filtering out green light. Green inhibits the growth rate of a majority of plants, despite contributing to photosynthesis. https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/58/12/3099/633072 https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/58/12/3099/633072
- seeker61 8y agoSuperweeds have been talked about before, in terms of weeds that are herbicide resistant. Kind of a yawn, really, unless you're a farmer. But a weed that grows 40% faster than anything else out there? That's some scary stuff. (Palmer amaranth, for example)
- jandrese 8y agoKudzu? Anyway, my impression is that most plants bottleneck on water or nutrients before sunlight, so this probably won't make that big of an impact if it gets out in the wild, but it would be a problem on fertilized and irrigated fields.
- jelliclesfarm 8y agoThere isn’t enough information to assess why this is a good thing or if it will work.
- peter303 8y agoAlso for better solar batteries. Direct solar to dissociated hydrogen & oxygen. Might eventually be more efficient than solar generated electricity if you read some of the university press releases.
- rmason 8y agoWhile this is certainly interesting it doesn't have as wide an application as you might think. In tobacco the harvested product of value is in the leaves, bigger leaves means a bigger crop. But take corn, larger leaves and a taller plant doesn't result in bigger ears of corn. A taller plant in general means that it is more likely to lodge or fall down in the fall before it's harvested. Some corn is harvested as silage meaning the entire plant is chopped and fed to cows. I've worked with farmers who experimented with varieties of corn that would be 3-4 feet taller than regular corn. The result was less feed value per acre than what they had been growing. With soybeans, wheat or oats you can also likely get an increased amount of disease with more foliage. This development may see more application than just tobacco but it remains to be seen.
- jessriedel 8y agoThis is a modification which increases the efficiency with which the plants generate needed sugars which presumably are used everywhere in the plant, not just the leaves. Why would this only increase the size of leaves? Indeed, if each photosynthesizing leaf becomes more efficient, wouldn't this decrease the number of leaves you need to support the non-leaf consumable part of the plant, allowing foliage to decrease?
- rdiddly 8y ago"It's called Rubisco, which is short for an actual chemical name that's very long and hard to remember." Anybody else wish he would've let us be the judge of that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO