Groundbreaking Research in Artificial Photosynthesis - Doing What Nature Couldn't

[@JonSullivan]

Very cool. That leaf in the thumbnail is a photo I took at the San Diego zoo many years ago. Great to see it still out there helping people make great content. Not looking for attribution or anything, just happy to see it used.

[@mitch5387]

That's awesome!

[@RupertReynolds1962]

That must be a nice feeling :-)

[@whatdamath]

Thank you! Let me know how I can credit this

[@paulwarner5674]

Just really hope you are still doing amazing photography.

[@JonSullivan]

@@paulwarner5674 - Thank you so much. I actually just moved to Oregon to have new photo options. Will be doing some wildlife and waterfalls this weekend I hope.

[@Alorand]

The millions of years of evolution were not "inefficient", but instead optimizing for various ever shifting demands of the environment that the organisms found themselves in. I love the word "satisficing" to explain the reason most plants found regular photosynthesis good enough to not make radical changes further.

[@N1otAn1otherN1ame]

Thank you, sir, for this comment.

[@cillyhoney1892]

If something is good enough to enable you to survive then that's what you go with.

[@cl8lf1wm8b]

@@cillyhoney1892 not really. If mutation occur and in some plant phonosynthesis will improve and this increases the chances of survival, then the new method will gradually replace old one in all plants of that species

[@realmcafee]

because they cant | they would like to if u give them a brain and ask | its not like "oh, we are good enough, this is our way" they are like "how mf ?! natural selection is not a threat and we all have sex" edit: the millions of years of evolution were very very inefficient in like most contexts u could put the scenario in

[@N1otAn1otherN1ame]

@@cl8lf1wm8b The problem with science today, in general, is that it promotes a distorted picture of the natural world. Anthropomorphisation of evolutional processes is the peak of human arrogance. Instead of being humble and accepting that, without a final goal or agenda nature brought about photosynthesis, a "modern" scientist instead says: "Look, the process is not perfect, nature is disappointing, let's fix it." The real joke is that we are not even close to understand complex systems. A fine example besides biology would be fusion research.

[@cinfdef]

This sounds like the plotline for Stray with the bacteria and low-light plants

[@ralphmourik]

You beat me to it! I just wanted to comment this. Stray is a great game, Played through it 5 times 🐱🐾👍

[@cinfdef]

@@ralphmourik It is a really good game! I hope to see future content made for it!

[@ralphmourik]

@@cinfdef The game itself is brilliant and doesn't need a continuation of the story or a part two. However, more content from the same universe would be awesome, maybe about the last generation of humans, or maybe more on the Outsiders and their adventures before they got stuck in the city.

[@tinkerstrade3553]

Midnight gardens at the poles might be a way to grow local produce for remote areas, and even not so remote areas. 😎👍

[@tomaspecl1082]

I would have never thought that we could engineer photosynthesis better than nature. This is amazing.

[@DVAFP]

nature is weak

[@matthewpopp1054]

Are plants really inefficient or have they evolved not to grow at a rate that would strip the land of water or minerals?

[@BenjaminGoose]

They have evolved to be efficient enough to successfully reproduce.

[@auhsojacosta1672]

The latter is true, maybe the plants that did that caused the Sahara desert to exist. Edit: shit.

[@BirdsTheWurd]

Humans could learn from the latter

[@lyrimetacurl0]

Hopefully they strip the place of CO2. Not sure if it's possible for plants to strip minerals, so probably water

[@ingridschmid1709]

Same doubts here, the glycol pathway being favored in both case of O2 excess or lack of CO2 a way too efficient plant would probably fast render its immediate environnement toxic .

[@ChJees2]

Stray tech sure came early.

[@SoManyRandomRamblings]

Well it has to start somewhere before it gets to the level it was in the game. Lol.

[@xarildri1302]

either that or society is about to collapse

[@SoManyRandomRamblings]

@@xarildri1302 thank goodness this was discovered first then.

[@filonin2]

@@xarildri1302 You take the development of more efficient food production as a sign of societal collapse? ROFL, tell that to the billions born since we figured out how to make artificial fertilizer.

[@redfoz1]

Photosynthesis is extremely interesting, especially with how interlinked it is with plant defence and other functions. I've just finished my PhD where I investigated the role of photoinhibition/photoprotection in plant defence.

[@quentinh5566]

Link?

[@ATVProven]

I want a cyborg plant.

[@corylyonsmusic]

They could grow stuff in complete darkness?!?! Wow, the applications for the future of space travel and planet migration! Wow, some of the things we can do, that would never have seemed possible. Great stuff Anton, thanks!

[@Argrouk]

You mean like mushrooms?

[@jonp8015]

​@@Argrouk You have to take the two stories together to see why they're a big deal. The "cyborg bacteria" produce acetic acid (the chemical used in the second story) at 80% efficiency, and as he pointed out, the plants themselves only average about 3-6% efficiency. Basically, he's talking about combining these two experiments to get 20x the plant mass out of the same amount of sunlight.

[@Argrouk]

@@jonp8015 No, I get it. It's the "Nature Couldn't" instead of "Nature doesn't need to" aspect, combined with the multitude of asinine "in the dark!?" comments.

[@vinigretzky97]

@@jonp8015 no

[@jonp8015]

@@vinigretzky97 Care to elaborate?

[@michaljanovsky8966]

this is completely amazing! please do notify us about how this project is going! and thank you for what youre doing... always so inspiring and interesting.

[@karlharvymarx2650]

When I decided to try farming vegetables in an existing greenhouse in Florida, I thought I was going to have to use the four giant fans and evaporative cooler, and maybe even the air conditioner that were part of it. From about 9am-5pm in Summer, without removing heat it stayed over 60C (140F). I thought the light part of the photosynthetic cycle would shut off for almost the whole day and the plants wouldn't grow. Instead they thrived. I still don't know why. I never had a chance to test my hypothesis that maybe it is root temperature that triggers the shutoff. The roots were relatively cool because they were in hydroponic solution which cycled through a several thousand liter underground tank. Also the fake soil was perlite which was exposed to air much of the time allowing evaporative cooling. My other thought is maybe the well aged fiberglass exterior blocked UV light and UV is the actual trigger? The primary crop was a test of about 20 kinds of heirloom tomatoes many of which happened to be from Ukraine and Russia. Tomatoes like heat, but on the other hand, that isn't the first area to pop into mind when I think of heat. My main goal was to find varieties with good flavor when grown hydroponically since in my previous experience it doesn't do the watermelon rind flavored commercials ones any favors. Interestingly the winners were all black tomatoes from Eastern Europe. I think I had a small number of other species of plants but I don't remember for sure and have no idea what kinds. As far as I could tell, the heat wasn't a problem for the plants, but it was hell for me. Mostly I only had to go in there to hand pollinate. Unfortunately the experiment never reached a conclusion because we got hit with 3 hurricanes in a row which shredded the greenhouse around the time some of the tomatoes were just beginning to ripen in large numbers. At time of death, I estimate 10kg-15kg of tomatoes per plant on average and a vine length of about 5m. Anyway, if anyone knows why the heat didn't seem to be a problem I would really like to know.

[@erroneous6947]

Excellent question. My neighbors green house (Polk county Florida) bakes everything to death. Till Ian disassembled it. I’m guessing the cool roots and the heat sink of the water. I’ve seen screened in shade houses work well here.

[@Ilkanar]

I'll add "Bacteria more efficient in photosynthesis pushing normal plants out of ekosystem" to my 2025 apocalypse bingo card

[@MCsCreations]

Pretty interesting indeed. Imagine the life out there in the universe, what kind of solutions they've found.

[@jimcrelm9478]

And how many of those solutions went wrong.

[@MCsCreations]

@@jimcrelm9478 The ones that goes wrong doesn't leave descents. They get extinct. So, it's impossible to know, but probably many of them, even here on Earth. That's what the evolution laws tells us.

[@jimcrelm9478]

@@MCsCreations Yeah. I just hope that some overly optimistic humans don't win us the whole-species Darwin Award in that way!

[@MCsCreations]

@@jimcrelm9478 Well, in that subject I don't have good news... 😬 It seems like most of the people who have the button are exactly those who should've won the Darwin Awards. 😕

[@theakh4238]

So if this gets out, and it would, it would out compete all other photosynthesizing organisms. What could possibly go wrong?

[@Goodwalker720]

Yeah it would need to be controlled better than Monsanto’s edited genes that can migrate into heirloom varieties 😢

[@marvinm.7634]

those mechanisms are there for a reason like protection from sunburn or diseases and so on, otherwise they would have been kicked out by evolution already.

[@philippdrescher6012]

Also the agricultural soil in most parts of the world is already heavily damaged from intensive use, chemicals and erosion, resulting in way lower yields and I don't think it will get better by using even more intensive farming methods.

[@MrJmoran2112]

One of the best content creators out there🙏🏼 stay strong my man

[@whatdamath]

Thank you Jesse

[@SurokuRokushan]

I enjoy all of your videos Anton

[@XxTheAwokenOnexX]

Dealers have been using Artificial Photosynthesis to grow marijuana plants for years lolz. Thankyou for another wonderful video Anton ❤️👍

[@diGritz1]

It's important to note that the low efficiency of natural photosynthesis is only low when compared to our standards. For the natural world it works incredibly well. Just consider that plants are basically made from air and sunlight. Which is why, for the most part, it's stayed the same for so long.

[@rikk319]

Air, sunlight...and water.

[@VariantAEC]

@@rikk319 And nutrients from the ground. Even in hydroponic farms there's a substrate plants grow into or enriched water containing the required nutrients for the plant to grow. Plants have not and never have grown from just water, sunlight and CO2 in the air. All plants and fungi need nutrients that don't exist in pure (as if distilled) water.

[@diGritz1]

@@rikk319 Yes they need water as well as nutrients. However I was referring to the plant structure. Both the water and nutrients are tools, one for moving the nutrients and the other to facilitate photosynthesis. If you remove all the water from a tree, structurally you still have a tree.

[@redfoz1]

@@diGritz1 photosynthesis has many other functions including plant defence to abiotic and biotic stress. Hence having a dynamic system which moderates itself to prevent accumulation of reactive oxygen species is just as important as maximising photosynthetic yield.

[@diGritz1]

@@redfoz1 As gardener for the better part of 30 years I concur. However I'm not sure how that relates to my comment. Your talking about what the ingredients are. As well as what they do. I'm simply referring to what ingredients constitute the majority of a plants structure.

[@ticthak]

Wonderful developments, but I can foresee also a "green goo" threat should an inappropriate closed-loop design be released (or, MUCH more likely, escape) into the wild- ANY body of water not completely isolated would inevitably contaminate a river, then an ocean...

[@Goodwalker720]

Yes there would need to be other restrictions placed on them. Like in Jurassic park where they made Dino clones dependent on a specific amino acid supplement. Knock out an essential gene to artificially regulate reproduction.

[@oldfatman4639]

one application could be growing food in caves or in the darkness of a polar winter. very interesting. thank you.

[@akbarmanzoor1256]

Morning coffee, cereal, and the latest Anton video 🤩 best way to start off my days. Thank you for keeping us educated king 😇

[@mikoshino]

Thank you for showing support to others who had life taken away from them. Not only with your great videos, but you also raise money to help others .. from the bottom of my heart, thank you, and I hope you will manage the pain of losing your child in a good way. Danke, Spasiba, will keep watching

[@tgdomnemo5052]

THANK YOU, ANTON ! 🙏🏼

[@garyfilmer382]

Tremendous technological advances in plant biology! Thank you, Anton.

[@TheAwillz]

Or the impending doom of all life as the new more “efficient” plants destroy the delicate balance of the exosphere and it all just turns to fecking goop…🤷‍♂️

[@darwinenthusiast3039]

Thank you for the wonderful synopsis, Anton!

[@temujinay8831]

We all should be all over this project, great job Anton.

[@BlueScreenCorp]

that stock video of that scientist staring puzzled at a leaf is fascinating

[@NeoWisp777]

That's just amazing! It would be incredible to have the ability to have plants grow in complete darkness, like figuring out how to do the Lettuce without the sun, that could improve life so much! Imagine being able to make a plants even grow in arid regions where it's not naturally located. Thanks again Anton!

[@henrybrowne7248]

I saw *whew*. This will help . . I'm a little uneasy though, Fing with Mother Nature . .

[@thomascollins6815]

The mad scientists could wind up creating a life form that would destroy the Earth's ecosystem.

[@tempestive1]

The road is longer - but I'm convinced means like permaculture (without the woo often associated) are the way.

[@cynvision]

as someone who sprouts seeds on my kitchen counter I'm a bit confused this "growing in darkness" wasn't understood before now. I'm thinking what the science is trying to promote is a constant state of germination. Which might mean you won't get recognizable lettuce even if you do get crunchy cells that taste like lettuce.

[@ThePinkBinks]

Improve life how? They’re planning on blocking out the sun with smog you fool. That’s what this is for. So you can’t grow food and are dependent on this crap.

[@hongyuan9912]

Very impressive! For both the discoveries and your understanding. Yes, light use efficiency and photorespiration are two major targets to improve photosynthesis. The current trend is to improve light capture and speed up the photorotection (such as NPQ) in fluctuating light and to minimize photorespiration. Several secondary metabolites synthesis are light dependent, which adds to the flavor of our food or has an important medical function. So growing plants in complete darkness is still challenging. Meanwhile, photorespiration is not as wasteful as people thought before. It can offer photoprotection, and involves in nitrogen, sulfur metabolism, and so on. And it is tightly linked to light-dependent respiration which does maintenance or growth. But still, I think we are getting to a brand new future where these will be overcome. We need more great guys like you to promote science!❤

[@polixaw1337]

Hey! I'm a french student studying biotechnology and food science, so this video was a blast for me! Thank you Anton!

[@seabeepirate]

Plants are astonishing! The mechanism by which they pull water from the ground blows my mind.

[@seabeepirate]

@@priapulida capillary action is only part but it’s how trees bend the rules about how far water can be lifted via suction. Look into it, it’s so much cooler than I knew.

[@farrier2708]

This seems to contradict your previous vid', Anton, when you suggested that life could not evolve around low luminosity stars because photosynthesis would not be possible. Surely, if we can produce a biology where plants can grow in darkness, nature would be more than capable of producing plants that could .survive in twilight. I, for one, would sincerely hope so. What do you think?

[@alwaysdisputin9930]

Definitely. I think we're life that lives in a black hole.

[@Nathan-jt8zt]

@@alwaysdisputin9930 how come?

[@Goodwalker720]

Well the plants were growing on acetic acid that was made from sunlight or PV electricity. There is already life that survives on heat/chemical reactions like underwater thermal vents.

[@stevechadwick85]

Purely amazing. Nature takes hundreds of millions of years to develop photosynthesis... and over the span of a few centuries man has improved it. Then again, I once heard its easier to take another idea and make it better, the truly difficult task is creating an idea of your own.

[@greenthumb8266]

We must be living on different planets. I see, nature takes millions of years to develop an incredible symbiotic relationship between countless living things, successfully, and then man comes along, in all his hubris, and decides he can improve it to fill his personal momentary, and usually monetary, need. Leaving dysfunction and utter destruction in his wake.

[@ronnetgrazer362]

@@greenthumb8266 Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. And evolution has been breaking millions of eggs every minute of every day, for millions of years now. Evolution producing us is its first big breakthrough since mammals became a thing. Informed evolution is next step in the evolution of evolution.

[@stevechadwick85]

@@greenthumb8266 No worries! That's simply called pessimism. Don't be alarmed- you are not on another planet.

[@greenthumb8266]

@@stevechadwick85 just to clarify, I didn’t say I was living on a different planet, funny you assume it’s I , who is on a different planet than this one, but I digress. One man’s pessimism is another man’s realism, ignorance is bliss they say.

[@greenthumb8266]

@@ronnetgrazer362 there won’t be anymore evolution if we continue the trajectory we’re on. Get your head out of the clouds and face brutal facts, we are polluting, poisoning and rendering this planet uninhabitable for greed and wishful thinking’s sake!

[@interrospire]

This is so epic! Definitely going to use this in my sci fi worldbuilding. And, Im sorry to hear what youve went through, but Im glad you can contribute to charities such as save the children.

[@Grand-Massive]

I think this will be extremely valuable to NASA.

[@Grimerpr2016]

agreed

[@emergentform1188]

Wow this is great news! Appreciate all the work you put into your vids my man.

[@hanspetrov4343]

:) lovely comment

[@DavidDatura]

I’d imagine these cyborg bacteria would be catastrophic if accidentally released into the wild outside of the lab, turning the world into vinegar 😏

[@rizizum]

As long as you don't drop some trillions of tons of cadmium in the ocean we should be fine

[@DavidDatura]

@@rizizum I was joking about, but fair enough.

[@heyyowatchthis]

WE NEED MORE! Great work.

[@noeoep]

What happens when these inevitably escape into wild? Over time they may become an ultimate invasive species, outcompeting all other photosynthetic life? Also maybe stripping virtually all CO2 out of atmosphere, causing another ice age?

[@_shadow_1]

They don't have to, we can use these for creation of oxygen off world for example.

[@hanspetrov4343]

" inevitabal escape " Sorry but... lol

[@elapplzsl]

Nothing would happen because we don't have high concentration of cadmium just dissolved in oceans/lakes or land.

[@noeoep]

@@elapplzsl I see. Turns out I missed most of the iteresting points in the video, cadmium among them.

[@quantum7401]

I took my Organic Chemistry series from a fantastic chemist; Dr Carl C. Wamser. I remember he was focused on artificial photosynthesis. I'll have to look up his work and see how it's going.

[@thebarkingmouse]

If you could get algae to 40% efficiency, then biodiesel suddenly becomes practical.

[@CHIEF_420]

💡

[@Goodwalker720]

There are bacteria, the ‘mother’ in vinegar, that convert ethanol to acetic acid, so it could be possible to convert it into an alcohol.

[@quijybojanklebits8750]

@A KZbin Channel dinosaurs didn't say anything they mostly screeched, growled and squeaked. No words no language.

[@shnakee]

@@quijybojanklebits8750 You must be fun at parties

[@SomeRandomAustralian]

@@shnakee he’s just stating the obvious because the comment he was responding to is a huge nothing burger

[@jaymethodus3421]

….. I don’t think any of us can really comprehend how truly game changing this is

[@HurricaneRainbowOG]

Very very awesome. One point about food security. One of the major issues is distribution, not availability. There's plenty, it's not distributed properly. Another is what is produced. most of the resources used to produce it is used to produce food that goes to first world countries. Food security is a red herring, in order to hide the fact that global production as it is now, are colonial ways of producing food, and are unsustainable. Indigenous knowledge has to be respected, and all too often we get ignored. For ages we've been pointing out the obvious to you, and yet many of you continue to ignore us. You can't eat money.

[@grim1427]

Lets see them make solar panels that reproduce now! Pretty durn cool, thanks for covering this!

[@hanspetrov4343]

Cant wait for replicator takeover

[@gweebara]

Chasing down the extremities of efficiency can be much like chasing addictions into Oblivion. Creating systems where things aren't 100% used up seems like a better way to create sustainability. This is interesting and fascinating science but I Ponder what is lost when efficiency is gained? Quality? Diversity? Durability?

[@cimonkien9833]

Your channel is always something intrigued.

[@InventiveHarvest]

"Better" is a matter of perspective. This reminds me of Infinite Jest. A big theme in the book is that things can be 'too good'. Like drugs as an example of something that is too good. In the book, their energy production created a toxic by product that was too good for the environment. Where we could be facing environmental devastation, in the book the end of society was threatened by out of control overgrowth.

[@dmonvisigoth1651]

Thanks for the info, Anton. You are a wonderful person! Much love.

[@johnsmiff8328]

Hi Anton! I'm so glad you're telling people about this! I'm applying to do a PhD related to synthetic biology approaches to photosynthesis improvement! Did you end up seeing the CETCH cycle (a novel RuBisCO bypass pathway)? Or alternatively did you see anything Patrick Shih is working on for synthetic plant gene regulatory systems for value-added products? Lots of really interesting work in this space and I feel like I'm here just in time!!

[@whatdamath]

Thank you I didnt see this yet. There's too much to cover for one video but maybe next time?

[@user255]

Any idea why evolution has preferred these less efficient pathways? To keep in sync with nitrogen cycle?

[@johnsmiff8328]

@@user255 There is a hypothesis that photorespiration plays a role in nitrogen metabolism in plants. In other photosynthetic organisms I'm not sure if there's anything to support the same idea. Generally my understanding would be that many natural inefficiencies are the result of evolution finding local maxima in 'efficiency space'. Natural variability in populations tends to lead to only small changes in the perspective of metabolic pathways, and variability in central metabolism is far less forgiving than in other, less crucial areas. In order for descendants of a plant to evolve into something that uses some other pathway and not the CBB cycle with RuBisCO, many small changes would need to happen that would make the plant less competitive against existing plants for generations until it could break through to the small changes that would give it a competitive advantage. Because the lineage would have to survive disadvantaged for _many_ generations, its overwhelmingly unlikely that nature would produce the kind of ambitious reorganization of central carbon metabolism we see from groups like Arren Bar-Even and Tobias Erb. I'd guess if nature ever adapted a more efficient mode of photosynthesis than CBB cycle, it would have to be in an environment where the organism wouldn't need to compete with existing plants because it would be very inefficient at first (like any new pathway) and would only be able to compete with existing photosynthetic organisms after _many_ generations of improvement. Very likely these natual metabolic pioneers would have to be extremophiles of some sort, which tend to be understudied. It could be that case that some obscure prokaryote photoautotroph is already out there in some hot spring with an enzyme fixing CO with a more suitable mechanism than RuBisCO uses, but it may be hundreds of thousands of years from being able to compete with existing CBB photoautotrophs in their habitats. Let alone that it would need to gain many more adaptations than just a better central metabolism to crowd out plants. That all goes to say that it's very difficult for evolution to make big changes in central metabolism without just starting over from the beginning. This is something that Synthetic Biologists are getting much better at directing and designing around and it makes me really excited to have the opportunity to help bridge nature from one island of high efficiency to another, without it having to break through the troughs of inefficiency between local maxima.

[@VitorFM]

@@user255 because sun is not the limiting resource, it's all the other nutrients! Photosynthesis is suficiente enough in most cases

[@user255]

@@johnsmiff8328 Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I just find all this unsatisfactory. There is already quite complicated evolution on how plants use RuBisCo, meaning from C3 to C4 photosynthesis. Also photosynthesis generally evolved very early and thus there was so much time to find a way out from local maxima. And given that plants are quite free to "experiment" with their genes, because they tolerate so well multiple copies of even the whole genome.

[@josephyoung6749]

It's exciting to see this level of cooperation between life and humanity.

[@GeoffryGifari]

if photosynthesis is generally inefficient, do we know where the unused energy go? is it transformed to heat?

[@ReivecS]

There are a number of answers to that. The waste product of the plant being one, heat being one, reflection of light back out into the atmosphere or space being one. Heat is probably the biggest one though. Just imagine sunlight hitting a nonliving object, that is zero percent "efficient" in the way Anton is talking about it. Where does that energy go? Some gets reflected but mostly it heats the object.

[@mpjstuff]

This is awesome. It's got to be a bit of swagger in the walk of these scientists to develop photosynthesis for plants that works in the dark, and better than nature. Usually we just have to wonder in awe and bend things we can't fully understand into place, but here, in this one particular place -- humanity isn't copying nature but teaching it a lesson.

[@mdb1239]

Scientists have been researching and studying photosynthesis since the 1700s (or over 220 years). Jan Ingenhousz published his study/research in 1799.

[@penumbraman99]

Very interesting. I hope these technologies become as successful & as important as I think they could be!

[@peterdobson3435]

It seems to me that for what photosynthesis is intended in nature, it is efficient enough. There is no need for a greater level of efficiency there. Since photovoltaics need greater efficiency due to what the output needs to be, then natural photosynthesis would not be enough. But that is imposing an artificial standard on a completely different situation.

[@jimcurtis9052]

Wonderful as always anton. Thank you. 🙂

[@Lord.Smith.the.first.]

I'm ready to be a terrible battery for my AI overlords

[@Grimerpr2016]

atm with current technology ai is far from being able to take over.. if that happens with in the next 10 years, i'd probably be killed off from them not being able to understand me.. lol

[@Lord.Smith.the.first.]

@@Grimerpr2016 well at least AI will do a better job of exploring the universe than us 😂

[@somekid8311]

6-8 generations before genetic diversity gets low enough to make everyone inbred it sucks to say but we are just a phase the sex organs for the machine world always changing like the wind best things last the least amount of time I guess

[@bruce3870]

A bit more warmth and higher co2 is best

[@keithhowell4138]

Yep ,,just goes to show the nonsense that climate science loves to ignore.

[@GeoffryGifari]

is it possible for artificial photosynthesis to take advantage of EM radiation outside the visible strip? (UV, IR, terahertz, microwave even?)

[@makeki7756]

They use uv, too. Microwaves are just too long and less energy

[@GeoffryGifari]

@@makeki7756 Oh really? pretty cool that UV light can be harnessed to build complex molecules while also being dangerous to cells at the same time

[@Poodleinacan]

That's pretty cool. Very impressive from the research teams.

[@Poodleinacan]

@P¡nned_by Anton Petrov get reamed, bot

[@onehappydawg]

This can only end badly 🤦🏼‍♂️

[@BenjaminGoose]

Why?

[@onehappydawg]

@@BenjaminGoose Why? Hubris.

[@petepete2284]

I love all you vids. Everything you put out, I am interested in.

[@osmosisjones4912]

Would a hydrogen sulfide atmosphere make photosynthesis more efficient

[@filonin2]

Aside from killing everything alive since it is poisonous, corrosive, and flammable, sure. Kids say the darndest things.

[@Goodwalker720]

There are anaerobic bacteria that could survive that. I believe similar Cyanobacteria are responsible for creating most of earth’s original oxygen.

[@maximosh]

Glycolic acid is probably no mistake by nature. Glycols act as antifreeze in cold conditions, possibly an ice age adaptation, and so protect plant biology, regardless of its human perceived inefficiency. Nature knows best with such bioprotective agents. The earlier red-blue light photo-efficiency claims by scientists show that humans are slow to learn due to not considering other factors such as plant nutritional production, which is very important to the consumers of plants.

[@thebarkingmouse]

Don't let any of that out of the lab, because it will take over.

[@28th_St_Air]

Don’t worry, the worst organism on the planet is already metastasizing everywhere and is planning to spread to other planets. 😮

[@filonin2]

How would it do that when it needs cadmium to work? There's not a lot of cadmium laying around in your back yard, is there?

[@Sancarn]

Wow imagine being able to literally stack growth of plants without massive energy (light) requirements. That could change farming forever. Revisiting the video, I completely missed the stuff about asatate generation from engineered bacteria! So combining the 2 technologies you can have massive pools of the bacteria in the desert, converting CO2 to O2 producing assetate used in underground farming utilities, grown in complete darkness. Sounds like an automation dream. Would be interesting to know what the biproducts are of growing plants from assetate. Anything nasty?

[@osmosisjones4912]

Why hasn't this evolved in nature.

[@lotoreo]

I was wondering the same thing, there has to be a reason, right?

[@filonin2]

@@lotoreo It isn't needed. Life works well enough to work. There is no plan; things just stumble forward with whatever works well enough to survive to reproduce. If there is no pressure to become more efficient, ie., the plant makes enough food to live, the plant will live and reproduce.

[@BenjaminGoose]

Why would it?

[@Scion141]

@@filonin2 I thought that people at this point in time would realise that evolution is about being good enough, not efficiency. If there's no selective pressure, things won't change

[@filonin2]

@@Scion141 Most people don't even believe in evolution, let alone understand it.

[@amosshapiro432]

If there is no light then it is not photosynthesis. Thanks for a very interesting KZbin, as usual.

[@-jeff-]

TYY Anton for providing the enlightenment that allows my knowledge to grow!

[@skyrat3816]

Ok, this wasn't what I had thought when seeing the video in my suggestion. When studying horticulture at college, a mate of mine from the course came up with a conversation, about how ground breaking it would be if we were able to replicate the reaction that goes on in chlorophyl to break the bonds in CO2, with the use of sunlight, and them thinking it would be as much of the holy grail of clean power production than nuclear fusion. This was interesting non the less.

[@megaplayer1445]

I feel sorry for your loss Anton! :(

[@prangos6072]

And last but not the least, such kind of organisms can exist in planets orbiting around red dwarfs in the habitable zone. In short, the information in this video contradicts what you have said in your previous videos about the possibility (or lack of it) of life in planets around red dwarfs.

[@JonMurray]

Been a long time trying to get the KZbin algorithm to spit out something awesome! Great video! New subscriber 😊✌🏻

[@abyssstrider2547]

Same here, haven't seen his vids in a while.

[@czarlguitarl]

revolutionary. Makes me wonder about the potential for agriculture; could tropical fruit be grown locally off-season? Could spices be grown easily in new climates? Absolute game changer for global trade in the shadow of this video's implications.

[@x-tremetwins1897]

I checked it too. it is on public sale that will end at the end of the month. I will buy tomorrow.

[@h2opower]

Have you ever heard of Stanley A. Meyer or Dr. Dingle, plus others that did what they did? What they did and didn't know what they where doing was breaking the bonds of the water molecules just about the way a plant breaks the bonds of the water molecule. In studying the technology for a very long time now I now have an understanding about the technology that allows me to understand how nature goes about breaking the bonds of the water molecules. This is the theory I came up with: "All Molecules can be separated into their component atoms by taking away the electrons from the atoms that make up the molecules." This theory will one day be in our books of science as it's how molecules are broken down in nature. Now things in nature go about doing this to the water molecules in different ways but the end result is always the same, take the electron away from the atoms that make up the water molecules and that act breaks the bonds of the water molecules. A plant uses sunlight to do this but thunderstorms use high voltage potential differences to do the same thing, and that is just what Meyer and the others did. These people make a capacitor of sorts using water as it's dielectric and subjected the dielectric to high voltage potential difference fields enough to cause the atoms to start ejecting their electrons and again it is that act that breaks the bonds of the water molecules. If you look at Meyer's Voltage Intensifier Circuit diagram and compare it to the earth's Global Electric Circuit you will see that he mimicked the earth's global electric circuit. This is how Meyer went about breaking the bonds of the water molecules at rates high enough to run internal combustion engines.

[@GeoffryGifari]

wow... cadmium-sulfide armored bacteria can be super-efficient at photosynthesis?

[@priceringo1756]

Nitrogen fixation is a trait that most food production plants should be engineered into it seems.

[@priceringo1756]

Any improvement would broaden/simplify crop rotation.

[@Jobobn1998]

The biggest issue I can see to terrestrial use of the "cyborg" bacteria is the fact that cadmium is very toxic to humans and other life. Unless there is a method of removing the cadmium from the acetate product that is virtually 100%, you wont be able to use that acetate for most useful applications--life food or biofuel growth. Still, it's extremely cool and I can imagine there's methods that exist or can be developed that would solve the toxicity issue.

[@RealBelisariusCawl]

Could something like this be used in hypothetical carbon sinks? Basically just allocating land to the cultivation of the super-photosynthetic “cyborgs” to create a hyper-dense area of CO2 scrubbing? It seems like an interesting idea to me, at least in theory. I’m just an idiot on the internet though.

[@M_K171]

There is a lot more to it than just photosynthesis. These are always closed systems we experiment with.

[@R.E.A.L.I.T.Y]

Fascinating & extremely important

[@aaroniouse]

Instead of growing things in complete darkness, it would be interesting to see the plants being able to grow with minimal light.

[@yvonnemiezis5199]

Very interesting, thank you😊

[@coyotetu]

New weed's going to be super dank.

[@PhilW222]

Well this is the year of Soylent Green!

[@danecowan3062]

Amazingly wonderful!

[@shmyeah]

I love you and i'm so proud of you!

[@lucifiaofthefreecouncil1312]

Lack of food security isn't because we don't have enough food but because they gatekeep food based on profit. We literally could feed the world several times over if we distributed it based on need and not greed. Before I got food assistance through the government I was literally starving surrounded by abundance of food. If I tried to take the food to live they'd throw me in jail. I'm not saying we shouldn't continue innovating and being more efficient in production but if we can't free up the food we have for everyone it's absolutely pointless for a large population of humanity.

[@marsbase3729]

Dude, now I can grow my pot 40% faster! Thanks Anton! But seriously, this is a really awesome discovery that could help end world hunger. 👍😎👍

[@dhaktizero4406]

their next trick will be to make a cyborg bacteria that releases bicarbonate of soda, and then it will be true love

[@wendyarbes9514]

About time. This is our energy AND computer future

[@Rovsau]

That's truly amazing.

[@humanaesthetic]

This is crazy groundbreaking.

[@andrewstout5400]

Looks good. Cure food insecurity now by ending all the Alarmist Hysteria.

[@Crypto-D]

This man is a genius, Anton you may very well save the world from hunger and disaster, I think you've more than proven your intelligence and worth among the scientific community and I am truly grateful for your mindset , stay wonderful as well,

[@petneb]

one day you will realize the humans are masters of oversimplification and the ignorance that goes along with it. What does efficiency of life on a planet scale mean in your humble opinion? Today CO2 is a limiting factor for plant growth but let's not think about that too much...

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Very cool! And quite necessary for not only our explorations out there, but here, too. There's too many food deserts, like you mentioned, and this would help that issue, too. Oh, and that tree-planting clip was beautiful! Such a verdant, green place - lovely! ❤️❤️❣️

[@Bayerwaldler]

Very inspiring! Thanks, Anton. Those improvements could also help with decarbonizing the atmosphere.

[@sidstevens9035]

What total woo woo !

[@McClarinJ]

A-CEET-ic acid, Anton. Exciting video!

[@YaBoiJeffe]

"Intelligent evil dust" - Julian assange. Blocking out the sun with aerosols, and this stuff to " cool the planet " is also going to have an effect on photosynthesis.