Crop improvement: getting inspiration from algae

What does algae photosynthesis have to do with solving food insecurity? 

In this episode on crop improvement, @_applechew interviews Liat Adler (@noodlyscientist) to hear how algae can help us improve the photosynthesis efficiency of “land plants”! 

Crop photosynthesis is not exactly perfect. One key enzyme in the mechanism called RuBisCo is slow and gets confused between carbon and oxygen: not what you want from your energy storage mechanism! 

Algae, however, have developed a system to improve both the speed and the accuracy of this process. The @McCormick_Lab is trying to integrate this system into land plants. That way, crops could use sunlight more efficiently, grow faster, and thus produce more food!

Art by @donohoho, intro and editing by @_applechew