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Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by macrolime on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @03:50PM (#33900042)
Can't wait for the first little green men (phosynthetic humans)
Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by gus_massa on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @04:29PM (#33900543)
There is a relevant analysis in https://what-if.xkcd.com/17/ about a "green" cow that can get energy from photosynthesis.
Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by cobbzilla on Thursday December 08, 2022 @12:17AM (#33904481)
> a "green" cow that can get energy from photosynthesis

Sun-fed beef?

Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by dahfizz on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @04:58PM (#33900892)
I wonder how it will change the livestock industry. Not having to feed animals alleviates the environmental concerns about eating meat, and would make meat cheaper.

Hell, I would buy myself some photosynthesizing cows and pigs if I can just put them in a pen outside and not have to feed them.

Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by mytailorisrich on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @06:07PM (#33901696)
Considering the surface area of a cow and that they apparently ought to eat 14+kg of grass a day plus a few kg of additional feed, a photosynthetic cow would quickly starve to death if you stopped feeding it... (ignoring the still necessary mineral intake)
Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by jonathankoren on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @06:13PM (#33901759)
That’s not a fair comparison. This is generating ATP directly, rather extracting sugars and whatnot the plant, most of which is indigestible waste, so it’s not like you’d need the surface area of 14 kg of grass.

The real problem is that you need hemispherical hairless cows. ;)

Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by akiselev on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @07:08PM (#33902276)
ATP requires adenine and ribose. The former requires nitrogen fixed for the grass by microorganisms and the latter requires glucose for the pentose phosphate pathway. Adenine might also be recycled by the mitochondria which would further complicate things (can ATP be sent back into the mitochondria? Can the mitochondria recycle adenine without the entire glucose/electron transport pathway?)

I suspect a photosynthetic cow would still need to eat a lot of grass

Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by moloch-hai on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @08:02PM (#33902723)
You process literal pounds of ADP to ATP and back to ADP, every day.

If you eat fructose, you end up turning some of that into uric acid and excreting it, wastefully. It does other varied harm on its way out.

Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by akiselev on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @09:02PM (#33903150)
> You process literal pounds of ADP to ATP and back to ADP, every day.

That's exactly my point. Some percentage of that ADP and ATP will be lost and the adenine/ribose broken down or reused for something else - cells are messy environments. Some of that will be lost permanently to waste. The more turnover in this process, the more opportunity for that loss.

Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by TeMPOraL on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @06:57PM (#33902151)
> The real problem is that you need hemispherical hairless cows. ;)

That's a good opportunity to join forces with Sabine Hossenfelder and together move some of excess funding from, say, particle physics, and allocate it to fundamental research on which all physics depends: creation of frictionless, vacuum-rated spherical cows.

Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by zopa on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @08:50PM (#33903075)
No need to wait: per Gene Wolf they’re also time travelers. They’ll come to you.
Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by clarionbell on Thursday December 08, 2022 @03:37AM (#33905723)
Unless they overshoot, end up on Urth and have to wait for a guy with a spare whetstone.
Re:Engineered photosynthesis demonstrated in animals in vivo... by k_sze on Thursday December 08, 2022 @03:28AM (#33905654)
Reminds me of "Knights of Sidonia".