Latest Photosynthetic pigments Stories

Tru-Band™ Technology from TruLite LED lets growers increase profits by driving down operating costs by using LED grow lights. Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) May 07, 2013 TruLite Industries seeks to set the standard for accuracy in wavelengths used for their LED grow lights with the indtroduction of Tru-Band™ Technology. With Tru-Band™ Technology in all of TruLite's products, customers can be sure they are getting accurate and precise wavelengths delivered to their plants. This technology...

University of Toronto Pigments found in plants and purple bacteria employed to provide protection from sun damage do more than just that. Researchers from the University of Toronto and University of Glasgow have found that they also help to harvest light energy during photosynthesis. Carotenoids, the same pigments which give orange color to carrots and red to tomatoes, are often found together in plants with chlorophyll pigments that harvest solar energy. Their main function is...

Indiana University IU seeks patent for discovery with implications for health care, climate change research An international team of biologists led by Indiana University's David M. Kehoe has identified both the enzyme and molecular mechanism critical for controlling a chameleon-like process that allows one of the world's most abundant ocean phytoplankton, once known as blue-green algae, to maximize light harvesting for photosynthesis. Responsible for contributing about 20 percent of...

Scientists have designed a screening tool that provides a fast, easy and relatively inexpensive way to predict levels of a specific toxin in lakes that are prone to blue-green algal blooms. Blue-green algae is not your average pond scum - rather than consisting of plant-like organisms, blue-green algae actually are cyanobacteria, and some species are linked to the production and release of the toxin microcystin into the water. Human exposure to the toxin through drinking or recreational...

The future of clean green solar power may well hinge on scientists being able to unravel the mysteries of photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert sunlight into electrochemical energy. To this end, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC), Berkeley have recorded  the first observation and characterization of a critical physical phenomenon behind photosynthesis known as...

'Taco shell' proteinResearchers at Washington University in St. Louis have figured out the orientation of a protein in the antenna complex to its neighboring membrane in a photosynthetic bacterium, a key find in the process of energy transfer in photosynthesis.Robert Blankenship, Ph.D., Markey Distinguished Professor of biology and chemistry in Arts & Sciences, led a team that for the first time combined chemical labeling with mass spectroscopy to verify the orientation. The team also...

By Altun, Ahmet Yokoyama, Shozo; Morokuma, Keiji ABSTRACT The protein environments surrounding the retinal tune electronic absorption maximum from 350 to 630 nm. Hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) methods can be used in calculating excitation energies of retinal in its native protein environments and in studying the molecular basis of spectral tuning. We hereby review recent QM/MM results on the phototransduction of bovine rhodopsin, bacteriorhodopsin, sensory rhodopsin...

Imagine a technology that would not only provide a green and renewable source of electrical energy, but could also help scrub the atmosphere of excessive carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. That's the promise of artificial versions of photosynthesis, the process by which green plants have been converting solar energy into electrochemical energy for millions of years. To get there, however, scientists need a far better understanding of how nature does it, starting with...

Astrobiology Magazine -- Scientists at Oregon State University have successfully cultured in a laboratory a microorganism with a gene for an alternate form of photochemistry an advance that may ultimately help shed light on the ecology of the world's oceans. The microorganism is SAR11, the smallest free living cell known and probably the most abundant organism in the seas. By being able for the first time to study the SAR11 "proteorhodopsin" gene in a laboratory, researchers will be...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Scientists at Oregon State University have successfully cultured in a laboratory a microorganism with a gene for an alternate form of photochemistry "“ an advance that may ultimately help shed light on the ecology of the world's oceans. The microorganism is SAR11, the smallest free living cell known and probably the most abundant organism in the seas. By being able for the first time to study the SAR11 "proteorhodopsin" gene in a laboratory, researchers will be...