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Earth's green heroes

Nature volume 449, pages 284–285 (2007)Cite this article

Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet

  • Oliver Morton
Fourth Estate: 2007. 384 pp. £25 0007163649 000717179X | ISBN: 0-007-16364-9

Oliver MortonFootnote 1 has written a biography of this organic greenery. He takes us on a grand tour from molecules to biosphere, and a very impressive journey it is. He tackles the difficulties of explaining how photosynthesis works, and teases out the exciting story of how electrons hop from one molecule to another along their complex pathways. If you thought that photosynthesis simply 'splits' carbon dioxide into its constituent elements in order to build organic molecules and release oxygen, you will soon be disabused. The oxygen is derived from water molecules, as part of the elaborate atomic trade-offs that power cells.

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Notes

  1. Oliver Morton is Nature's chief News and Features editor.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Richard Fortey is visiting professor of palaeobiology at Oxford University, and research associate at the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK.,

    Richard Fortey

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  1. Richard Fortey
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Fortey, R. Earth's green heroes. Nature 449, 284–285 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/449284a

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