http://nextbigfuture.disqus.com/enFri, 01 Jan 2010 12:42:10 -0000http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/07/project-to-re-engineer-photosynthesis.html#comment-27769818<p>who on earth's idea at Disqus was it to not render subscript tags? epic fail.</p>evilrocksFri, 01 Jan 2010 12:42:10 -0000http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/07/project-to-re-engineer-photosynthesis.html#comment-27769745<p>Impressive goal-setting! Although C4 plants perform best in low-CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; climates, C3 plants outperform in high CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; climates due to Rubisco's kinematics at varying CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; concentrations. I'd like to run a test on a bunch of C3 and C4 plants to see what level of CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; concentrations are necessary for C3 plants to outperform the C4s (but IANABiologist, nor am I interested in performing the research myself).</p><p>This ties into a theme that I enjoy pointing out frequently: our civilization's inability to plan for a changing world and bias towards stasis in much decisionmaking. In other words, we focus too much on plans that require the world to remain the same while trying to keep the world in stasis (see: most climate change activism) without making plans that incorporate likely changes. For example; trying to understand the point of CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; concentrations that will drive C3 plants to outperform their C4 evolutes.</p>evilrocksFri, 01 Jan 2010 12:39:51 -0000http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/07/project-to-re-engineer-photosynthesis.html#comment-12621891<p>Would be amazing to see this work. I'm surprised it will take 15 years to complete, while a proof of concept is expected in only 3 years.</p>cybrbeastTue, 14 Jul 2009 05:14:04 -0000http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/07/project-to-re-engineer-photosynthesis.html#comment-12552209<p>1st paragraph:<br>less, fertilizer -&gt; less fertilizer<br>3rd paragraph:<br>relatively I inefficient -&gt; relatively inefficient</p>GuestSun, 12 Jul 2009 14:28:15 -0000