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February 20, 2006
Engineered Plant Enzyme Increases Carbon Dioxide Uptake
This falls in the realm of things that drives Dianne crazy. Of course the coolness factor is so great I have to talk about it!! Scientists working in the lab asked the question is there a way that we could increase the amount of carbon dioxide that plants consume naturally. So they took apart the mechanism the plants used during photosynthesis to convert water, sunlight and CO2 into food for the plant to survive and the oxygen we need so desperately to breath. They were toying around with enzyme used by plants to do this conversion. So they started experimenting with variants of the enzyme looking for versions that were better. Low and behold they stumbled across a mutant strain that works 5 times better than the version used in plants in the wild. That's right, imagine plants that can produce 5 times as much oxygen, but of course it also means they will have 5 times a much food for growth as well. Which is where things start getting dicey for people like Dianne. These mutant strains of the enzyme haven't become dominant in nature for some reason so is it wise to unleash them into the wild? Personally the notion of plants with 5 times the growth potential is a great choice. Now we will of course make sure that we don't pick plants that will cross pollinate with weeds, because the last thing we need is a weed that grows 5 times faster. I'm wondering how it would effect food crops grown by these plants. Now given the formula if the plants didn't have enough water it wouldn't matter how much it could grow, so it would grow to the limits of the water available, but it could be a nice way to take advantage of short growth cycles in hostile environments. It would be great for long range space missions.
Read more over at Green Car Congress.
Posted by ManDrake at February 20, 2006 11:52 AM
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