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Details of Photosynthesis Captured by SLAC’s X-ray Laser

The machinery responsible for photosynthesis – while commonplace and essential to life on Earth – is still not fully understood. One of its molecular mysteries involves how a protein complex, Photosystem II, harvests energy from light and uses it to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This video explains how, in a previous paper, researchers were able to see two key steps in photosynthetic water splitting under conditions as it occurs in nature, a big step to decoding how the process works in detail.

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New X-ray methods have captured the highest resolution room-temperature images of photosystem II.

In a major step forward, SLAC’s X-ray laser captures all four stable states of the process that produces the oxygen we breathe, as well as fleeting steps in between. The work opens doors to understanding the past and creating a...

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