Re: Solar power's "bright future" [ may be brighter thanks to us aping the quantum trickery of certain algae (cryptophytes specifically)]

['Chris de Morsella' via Everything List]

________________________________
 From: Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au>
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: Solar power's "bright future" [ may be brighter thanks to us aping 
the quantum trickery of certain algae (cryptophytes specifically)]
 

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 10:27:48PM -0700, meekerdb wrote:
> 
> What is baffling to me is that photosynthesis in algae relies on
> absorption in the red and blue part of the spectrum, but reflects
> the big green part in between??  Why didn't it evolve another
> pigment to capture that in order to live in low light conditions?
> 

>>The idea I've heard is that the original photosynthesiser absorbed the
green portion of the spectrum, and then the current photosynthesiser
came along later, and made use of the remaining bits of the spectrum
(red+blue), and ultimately outcompeted the earlier photosynthesis
system.

Interesting! Did not hear about this hypothesis... so thanks for sharing. I 
have also wondered why the green spectrum is not being used in photosynthesis.

>>I gather the earlier photosynthetic system might still be around - the
so-called purple bacteria, which use a different photosynthesis process
producing sulfur, not oxygen.

This also explain why the atmosphere was not oxygenated until ca 2Gya.

>>But it does illustrate the way evolution can get stuck in a local
optima. And also further evidence that any purported Creator must be
completely incompetent.

Evolution always must begin with a preexisting platform -- so to speak -- and 
builds on top of it (in an evolutionary way). Take the human brain as an 
example. We remain stuck with the (local optima) of our reptilian brains for 
example, and much of our functioning is still centered in these ancient parts 
of our brain. Evolution needs to live with what it got and build upon it.... 
and human brain anatomy tells this story of hundreds of millions of years of 
tinkering, adapting and adding new systems on top of older preexisting systems 
(as opposed to radical from the ground up re-building).

Cheers,
Chris


Cheers

-- 

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