For decades, the basics of plant growth have been taught in grade school: Plants make their food out of water from the soil, light from the sun and carbon dioxide from the air in a process called ...
In today's plants, photorespiration dissipates some of the energy produced by photosynthesis and releases CO2. It begins when the enzyme RuBisCO acts on oxygen instead of carbon dioxide and creates ...
A newly proposed biochemical cycle explains the function of photorespiration in plants, long thought to be a 'wasteful' energy consuming process.