Photosynthesis

In the Real World

History

In the 1600s, Jan Van Helmont made a reasonable hypothesis. He gathered that, in order for a tree to grow and gain mass, it must obtain food from somewhere else. He carefully weighed a tree and the...

Politics

In principle, photosynthesis research seems like a relatively nonpolitical subject. However, in reality, it is an integral part of recent science policy debates. Photosynthesis and science policy i...

Pop Culture

Many superheroes call on science to describe where they find their superhuman powers. For Spiderman, a spider transferred its DNA to Peter. For Superman, his powers came from exposure to the Earthâ...

Research

While scientists have made major advancements in photosynthetic research over the last century, we still have a somewhat incomplete picture of the whole process. Slackers! Scientists would like to...