12 ms·

Scientists find link between photosynthesis and 'fifth state of matter'

109 points by 8bitsrule 3y ago

vitehozonage 3y ago
Actual paper which has a nicer summary: https://journals.aps.org/prxenergy/abstract/10.1103/PRXEnergy.2.023002 https://journals.aps.org/prxenergy/abstract/10.1103/PRXEnerg...
- siddbudd 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - nine_k 3y ago
    In other words, if you look around for everyday things that substantially use quantum-mechanical effects, it's not just a laser pointer or a flash drive; it's also every green plant.
- 8bitsrule 3y ago
  The ARI of the paper's 1400-char abstract is 25+ (disciplinary professor level) The ARI of the article's first 1387 chars is 13+. (college freshman) I'll admit I'm not up to speed on the 'Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex' OR 'accounting for intrachromophore electron correlation'.
  - vitehozonage 3y ago
    and the 'Popular Summary' below the abstract?
    - water-data-dude 3y ago
      I’ll admit that I didn’t see it until you pointed it out. I scrolled down a little bit, saw the citation info and author affiliation, and assumed there wasn’t anything else.
josemanuel 3y ago
Will we ever be able to extract CO2 from the atmosphere by mimicking the process that goes on in trees? And perhaps speeding it up or increasing the density? Is that even feasible? Disclaimer I know very little about botany/biology/chemistry.. so if the question may be off.
- PeterisP 3y ago
  We can, but you have to supply energy to do it; and since we still burn carbon for energy, it's not worth extracting CO2 since if you've got the spare energy for that, it's far more efficient to simply burn less coal.
  - cduzz 3y ago
    Having a thing that makes nice big carbon structures from atmospheric carbon would be nifty, though. People use wood for all sorts of things; being able to plop a "seed" some place and come back in a couple seasons and have a structure made from sunlight, ambient minerals, and co2 from the air -- would be super cool. I still can't quite convince my kids or other people I mention it to -- hey -- this tree? Almost all of it comes from air and sunlight. I'm lucky to live near some really big, really old trees; they're quite obviously magical.
    - zafka 3y ago
      Yes, It really does boggle the mind when you realize that these large trees were mostly manufactured from air. Just a few trace elements sucked out of the ground added in.
  - beezlewax 3y ago
    So power it with wind or nuclear?
    - PeterisP 3y ago
      If you have x MWh of wind or nuclear, then using that for CO2 conversion to C is worthless and harmful, since the obvious alternative is to send the same MWh to consumers, replacing x MWh produced by current coal electricity plants, as that would reduce the CO2 emissions at least 2-3 times more than what you could capture with that energy. As long as there's at least a single "CO2 conversion machine" and at least a single coal plant, shutting down an equal quantity of both is a good deal for both environment and economy. I mean, in practice there's a single pool of energy for each region and even those are connected in various ways (e.g. shipping of fuels), so "power A with X and B with Y" is just fiction, all energy consumption is powered with all energy generation, and the marginal consumption is (currently) fueled by fossil fuels, which vary how much is burnt based on how much consumption is not filled by nuclear/solar/wind.
docmechanic 3y ago
I’m wondering if it’s possible that the UAPs with no means of propulsion that pilots see and record could be doing some energy transfer using this or a similar principle. "When a photon from the sun strikes a leaf, it sparks a change in a specially designed molecule. The energy knocks loose an electron. The electron, and the "hole" where it once was, can now travel around the leaf, carrying the energy of the sun to another area ///"
- docmechanic 3y ago
  Clearly, speculative science fiction is not a safe topic for HN. Downvote noted.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    It'll be super ironic if some aliens somewhere read that and think something like "shit, we've been found out". ;)
    - docmechanic 3y ago
      lol
- nine_k 3y ago
  You can theoretically use an electron cannon as a source of thrust, but that thrust would be very, very small. Even very real and large electric ion thrusters that power interplanetary spacecraft have thrust within a few N. And this is very far from the range of energies that photosynthesis molecules provides.
  - docmechanic 3y ago
    I appreciate the sincere reply and the explanation. I don’t know physics. Just coming at it from the pov of a writer of speculative science fiction.

109 points by 8bitsrule 3y ago

Actual paper which has a nicer summary: https://journals.aps.org/prxenergy/abstract/10.1103/PRXEnergy.2.023002 https://journals.aps.org/prxenergy/abstract/10.1103/PRXEnerg...

siddbudd 3y ago
[flagged]
- nine_k 3y ago
  In other words, if you look around for everyday things that substantially use quantum-mechanical effects, it's not just a laser pointer or a flash drive; it's also every green plant.
8bitsrule 3y ago
The ARI of the paper's 1400-char abstract is 25+ (disciplinary professor level) The ARI of the article's first 1387 chars is 13+. (college freshman) I'll admit I'm not up to speed on the 'Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex' OR 'accounting for intrachromophore electron correlation'.
- vitehozonage 3y ago
  and the 'Popular Summary' below the abstract?
  - water-data-dude 3y ago
    I’ll admit that I didn’t see it until you pointed it out. I scrolled down a little bit, saw the citation info and author affiliation, and assumed there wasn’t anything else.

josemanuel 3y ago

Will we ever be able to extract CO2 from the atmosphere by mimicking the process that goes on in trees? And perhaps speeding it up or increasing the density? Is that even feasible? Disclaimer I know very little about botany/biology/chemistry.. so if the question may be off.

PeterisP 3y ago
We can, but you have to supply energy to do it; and since we still burn carbon for energy, it's not worth extracting CO2 since if you've got the spare energy for that, it's far more efficient to simply burn less coal.
- cduzz 3y ago
  Having a thing that makes nice big carbon structures from atmospheric carbon would be nifty, though. People use wood for all sorts of things; being able to plop a "seed" some place and come back in a couple seasons and have a structure made from sunlight, ambient minerals, and co2 from the air -- would be super cool. I still can't quite convince my kids or other people I mention it to -- hey -- this tree? Almost all of it comes from air and sunlight. I'm lucky to live near some really big, really old trees; they're quite obviously magical.
  - zafka 3y ago
    Yes, It really does boggle the mind when you realize that these large trees were mostly manufactured from air. Just a few trace elements sucked out of the ground added in.
- beezlewax 3y ago
  So power it with wind or nuclear?
  - PeterisP 3y ago
    If you have x MWh of wind or nuclear, then using that for CO2 conversion to C is worthless and harmful, since the obvious alternative is to send the same MWh to consumers, replacing x MWh produced by current coal electricity plants, as that would reduce the CO2 emissions at least 2-3 times more than what you could capture with that energy. As long as there's at least a single "CO2 conversion machine" and at least a single coal plant, shutting down an equal quantity of both is a good deal for both environment and economy. I mean, in practice there's a single pool of energy for each region and even those are connected in various ways (e.g. shipping of fuels), so "power A with X and B with Y" is just fiction, all energy consumption is powered with all energy generation, and the marginal consumption is (currently) fueled by fossil fuels, which vary how much is burnt based on how much consumption is not filled by nuclear/solar/wind.

docmechanic 3y ago

I’m wondering if it’s possible that the UAPs with no means of propulsion that pilots see and record could be doing some energy transfer using this or a similar principle. "When a photon from the sun strikes a leaf, it sparks a change in a specially designed molecule. The energy knocks loose an electron. The electron, and the "hole" where it once was, can now travel around the leaf, carrying the energy of the sun to another area ///"

docmechanic 3y ago
Clearly, speculative science fiction is not a safe topic for HN. Downvote noted.
- justinclift 3y ago
  It'll be super ironic if some aliens somewhere read that and think something like "shit, we've been found out". ;)
  - docmechanic 3y ago
    lol
nine_k 3y ago
You can theoretically use an electron cannon as a source of thrust, but that thrust would be very, very small. Even very real and large electric ion thrusters that power interplanetary spacecraft have thrust within a few N. And this is very far from the range of energies that photosynthesis molecules provides.
- docmechanic 3y ago
  I appreciate the sincere reply and the explanation. I don’t know physics. Just coming at it from the pov of a writer of speculative science fiction.