Evening star., 1932-06-02
SUNLIGHT FOOD"
ELUDES SCIENCE
Mature of ChIorophyI| Has,
However, Been Discovered
at Harvard.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

BOSTON, June 2 (NAN.A).-1
may come as a distinct disappointment
to readers to be informed that there
does not seem to be any immediate
prospect Of the world getting its food
stuffs out of thin air and bright sun
shine by artificial means, in spite OF
the fact that the nature of chlorophyll
has been discovered by Harvard SCI
entists.
Prof. James Bryant Conant, chairman
of the division of chemistry at Harvard
University. recently received the Will
liam H. Nichols medal by the New
York section of the American Chemical
Society for his work with this afore-
mentioned chlorophyll.
Easy to Pronounce.
Chlorophyll provides us with all the
food on which we live. Yet in spite of
its vital Importance to life, and its
rather alarming name, chlorophyll is
nothing more than the coloring ma
terial that makes grass and leaves and
all other green living things green.
Even its pronunciation isn't difficult.
Don't sav chloroform, say chloro-flll.
Easy, isn't 1t?
Every cell that contains chloro-
phyll" says Prof. Conant, lis able to
absorb the energy of the sunlight and
in some mysterious way use this energy
for the conversion Of carbon dioXide
(carbonic acid gasl of the air into
sugar, starch and proteins
This process is called photosynthesis,
and on it depends all the life of this
planet, since colorless plants like fungi
as we'll as animals live on the ac-
Cumulated organic compounds synthe-
sized by green plants by photosyn-
thesis
In other words. everything that man
and other animals eat is provided for
us out of the air and sunlight by the
help of these green chlorophyll mole
cules. We depend upon them abso-
1utely for our substenance. They pro-
vide us with sugars, starches and pro-
teins. either directly as when We eat
vegetable matter, or indirectly, as when
We eat animal matter that in its turn
has subsisted on vegetables.
Obviously. if We could discover how
the chlorophyl molecules do their work,
we might be able to induce them to
work for us in an artificial way-out-
side of the plant structure. We might
have great machines that would make
starches and sugars and proteins out
of nothing more than air and sunshine.
But as yet there is nothing more
than a pleasant dream. And, as a
distinguished scientist puts it, why
bother to set up this artificial synthes:s
when nature does such good job for
us?"
Chemical Snapshot"
Regardless. however. of the desira-
bilitv of such an artificial method of
making food from sunlight and air, If
the day ever comes when the process
is reality it Will be due, in generous
measure, to Prof Conant and his CO.
workers at Cambridge. For through
their Investigations of the last four
years the essential nature of chloro-
phyll has been discovered. So close
upon the heels of the elusive chlorophyll
has Prof Conant been that he has
even drawn its picture-a chemical pic
ture.
The process called photosynthesis, by
which living cells containing chlorophyll
convert light and air into foodStuffs,
though studied in its various phases for
q century or more, still remains very
much a mystery.
The plant physiolcgist Emerson has
recently shown quantitatively that the
rate of the photosynthesis depends upon
the amount of chlorophyll in the living
cell, other things being equal Prof.
Conant explains
The primary importance of chloro-
phyll is in the absorption OF llght-lt
Is intensely colored because it has high
absorptive power fer visible light. Ac-
cording to Emerson. chlorophyll also