The photosynthetic machine

A biophysicist with the Research Institute for Advanced Studies, established by the Martin Company in Baltimore, MD., Dr. Hans Turnit explains the chemical process of photosynthesis and the life cycle of a plant vs. that of an animal. He also discusses lamella planes and shows a film clip of how materials can be taken from chloroplasts and made into monomolecular films or layers, as researched by Nobel Prize winner Irving Langmuir. Dr. Albert Krall, a plant biochemist at the same institute, discusses respiration of plants and reports the two problems his research is trying to solve: how energy is converted into chemical energy and by which enzymatic steps is energy stored. He notes that in 1828 Friedrich Wohler laid the foundation for organic chemistry, and in 1896 Eduard Buchner opened the era of biochemistry. Now the Calvin Group in California has traced the path of carbon through a plant during photosynthesis showing that sunlight acts on the chlorophyll to make organic compounds. Dr. Krall shows a mock-up model of a chloroplast with grana and a hypothetical model representing the enzymatic reaction during photosynthesis. Dr. Bessel Kok, a plant physiologist with the institute, describes a microscopic view of a plant cell. A time lapse film, by Dr. Jan Zurzicky, of chloroplasts under differing light intensities shows an example of light saturation. Since plants convert one-third of light energy into usable energy, photosynthesis from experimental large-scale algae farms could be a key source of energy and food in the future.