Re: Colors of alien plants -- Scientific American

On Mar 30, 8:24=A0pm, "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> The April issue of Scientific American has an article on
> astronomical including what light would be used for
> photosynthesis on planets of various star-types...

Curious. What are they basing this on? Things like "take advantage of
frequency where the tensity is the greatest" (green, for our Sun...
oops, looks like evolution missed that)? It would seem so much depends
on what first photoactive pigment gets fixed into the system that
there's an awful lot of good old evolutionary luck in there. Not to
mention there's going to be some frequencies that biology would have
intense trouble tapping (it's tough to fix energy when the incoming
energy is enough to break covalent bonds, for instance).

What's your take on it - worth the read, or reha****ng the wrong?

> and what the plants might look like.

It does sound interesting, especially when I teach biophysics again.

--
Brian Davis