photosynthesis
[foh-tuh-sin-thuh-sis]
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noun Biology, Biochemistry.
the complex process by which carbon dioxide, water, and certain inorganic salts are converted into carbohydrates by green plants, algae, and certain bacteria, using energy from the sun and chlorophyll.
Origin of photosynthesis
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Examples from the Web for photosynthesis
Contemporary Examples of photosynthesis
Historical Examples of photosynthesis
Now, the red rays of the spectrum are the ones which are most efficient for photosynthesis.
The Chemistry of Plant LifeRoscoe Wilfred Thatcher
On the other hand, their ancestors, the green or yellow mastigota, form new plasm by photosynthesis like true cells.
The Wonders of LifeErnst Haeckel
There the miracle of life consists merely of the chemical process of plasmodomism by photosynthesis.
The Wonders of LifeErnst Haeckel
Growing plants kept the air in their greenhouse fresh and breathable by photosynthesis.
Asteroid of FearRaymond Zinke Gallun
These two are the materials for the reverse process in photosynthesis.
photosynthesis
noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
photosynthesis
[fō′tō-sĭn′thĭ-sĭs]
n.
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
photosynthesis
[fō′tō-sĭn′thĭ-sĭs]
A Closer Look: Almost all life on Earth depends on food made by organisms that can perform photosynthesis, such as green plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. These organisms make carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water using light energy from the Sun. They capture this energy with various pigments which absorb different wavelengths of light. The most important pigment, chlorophyll a, captures mainly blue and red light frequencies, but reflects green light. In plants, the other pigments are chlorophyll b and carotenoids. The carotenoids are usually masked by the green color of chlorophyll, but in temperate environments they can be seen as the bright reds and yellows of autumn after the chlorophyll in the leaves has broken down. The energy gathered by these pigments is passed to chlorophyll a. During the light reactions, the plant uses this energy to break water molecules into oxygen (O2), hydrogen ions, and electrons. The light reactions produce more oxygen than is needed for cellular respiration, so it is released as waste. All of the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere today was produced as waste by photosynthetic organisms, especially cyanobacteria, which have been producing oxygen for some three billion years, since their first appearance in the Precambrian Eon. During the dark reactions, the plant uses hydrogen ions and the electrons to make carbon dioxide into carbohydrates. Within the leaf of a green plant, photosynthesis takes place in chlorophyll-containing chloroplasts in the columnlike cells of the palisade layer and in the cells of the spongy parenchyma. The cells obtain carbon dioxide from air that enters the leaf through holes called stomata, which also allow excess oxygen to escape. Water from the roots is brought to the leaf by the vascular tissues called xylem, while the carbohydrates made by the leaf are distributed to the rest of the plant by the vascular tissue called phloem.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
photosynthesis
Note
Green plants depend on chlorophyll to carry out photosynthesis.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.