Tag: Photosynthesis

Sciency Words: Euphotic Zones

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 11 Comments

Sciency Words: (proper noun) a special series here on Planet Pailly focusing on the definitions and etymologies of science or science-related terms.  Today’s Sciency Word is:

EUPHOTIC ZONES

Based on what Google ngrams has to tell me, it looks like “euphotic” and “euphotic zone” entered the English lexicon right at the start of the 20th Century, then really caught on circa 1940.

The word euphotic is a combination of Greek words and means something like “good lighting” or “well lit.”  In the field of marine biology, the euphotic zone refers to the topmost layer of the ocean, or any body of water, where there’s still enough sunlight for photosynthesis to occur.

My first encounter with this term was in this paper by astrophysicists Carl Sagan and Edwin Salpeter.  Sagan and Salpeter sort of co-opted this term from marine biologists and applied it to the layer of Jupiter’s atmosphere where—hypothetically speaking—Jupiterian life might exist.

I don’t see any reason why the term could not also by used for other planets as well.  There’s a euphotic zone just above the cloud tops of Venus.  The same could be said about Saturn or Uranus.  Or maybe if the ice is thin enough, we may find euphotic zones right beneath the surfaces of Europa or Enceladus.

Of course just because a planet has a euphotic zone, that doesn’t mean photosynthetic organisms are living there.  And also there are plenty of ecosystems here on Earth that do not depend on photosynthesis and that don’t exist anywhere near a euphotic zone.

Still, I’m very glad to have picked up this term.  The concept of euphotic zones can be very helpful in any discussion of where alien life may or may not be hiding.

Are Plants Smarter Than You?

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 2 Comments

Everybody’s heard of photosynthesis.  We all learned about it in middle school science, and most of us promptly forgot about it during summer break.  It’s the process where plants use sunlight as an energy source.  Now scientists have discovered photosynthesis is even more complicated than originally thought.

Image courtesy of WP Clipart.

According to an article from Wired News (click here), researchers have discovered that plants use quantum mechanics to maximize the amount of energy they collect from the sun.  Quantum mechanics is the really weird part of physics.  It tells us, among other things, that subatomic particles can exist in more than one place at the same time so long as no one observes them.

When sunlight enters the leaf of a plant, the individual photons exist in more than one place at the same time, traveling in multiple directions through the leaf, letting the plant choose the pathway that suits it best.  Once the plant chooses, it has made an observation in the quantum mechanical sense and the other versions of that photon cease to exist.  The plant consumes the photon, and the process begins again.

In other words, plants use quantum mechanics like an eating utensil.  What a knife and fork are to us, the strangest, most complicated branch of physics is to a plant.  Keeping this in mind, the killer plant from Little Shop of Horrors seems a lot more dangerous.

They say that anyone who claims to understand quantum mechanics is lying.  Humans have been struggling with it for almost a century, and it still doesn’t make any sense.  But plants get it, and they use it.  They probably worked it out millions of years ago.  So what else do they know that we don’t?