thisisnotdan

thisisnotdan t1_j4vo1w3 wrote

Reply to comment by TheWhiteLancer in Scientists Have Developed a Living “Bio-Solar Cell” That Runs on Photosynthesis by everlovingkindness

It does look suspiciously like a potato battery! Those batteries consume the anode, though, so the power they "generate" actually comes at the cost of the metal you stick into them. The potato just enables you to harness the power of rusting.. According to the abstract of the paper linked in the article, though:

> The addition of the photosystem II inhibitor 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea inhibits the photocurrent, indicating that water oxidation is the primary source of electrons in the light.

If I'm reading this right, it means that, rather than consuming the iron anode like a potato battery would, the water molecules themselves are "consumed," producing hydrogen gas (and maybe oxygen gas?).

Biological systems are complex, though, and I've never even fully understood how a regular battery works (to my own satisfaction; I passed college physics courses well enough), so I could be understanding this incorrectly.

EDIT: At the risk of being even more wrong, it looks like (based on the diagram shown next to the abstract) what's happening is that the electrodes in the leaf are "short-circuiting" the normal photosynthesis process by catalyzing a reaction of NADH (an important molecule in photosynthesis) that generates capturable electricity and releases hydrogen gas as a byproduct.

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thisisnotdan t1_iur9x9c wrote

Reply to comment by pegothejerk in Voters can erase racist wording in Alabama Constitution by motayba

I don't think many people who have actually read the U.S. Constitution want it changed. It's a concise, carefully-worded and well-thought-out document that gives the Federal Government the tools it needs to operate, without getting bogged down in details. Even in Liberal circles, the most I ever hear are calls for changes in term limits or the electoral process, which is more like tweaking the Constitution rather than changing it.

State Constitutions serve a different purpose, though, and are right to be more detailed, and also more flexible. As a general rule in government, the closer you are to individual people, the more precise you should be in law and policy. Something as distant as the US Constitution should be very broad and general, do you learn more with procedure than anything; something as close as a city ordinance is where you should find things like how to keep your yard, etc.

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