Document 1: http://www.photosynthesisresearch.org/ Photosynthesis was discovered in 1771, by Joseph Priestley.

This enclosure of a sprig of mint in a glass vessel for 10 days restored air "rendered noxious by breathing" to its former "salubrious condition. Josephs discovery of oxygen and its generation by plants from the sun, air and water led to our present day understanding of the ways in which the thin green veneer of a plants environment, on land and sea, has transformed the atmosphere of Earth. Photosynthesis in plants, creates the oxygen that all of humanity breaths. Plants also produces bread and wine, the fuels and fibers the we eat/drink everyday. Photosynthesis research was further recognized by the Prize in Biology (1991) awarded by the Emperor of Japan to Hatch and Slack (for unraveling the C4 pathway of carbon metabolism in sugarcane and other plants).

Document 2: http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/4/681.full Photosynthesis is a highly regulated, multistep process. It encompasses the harvest of solar energy, transfer of excitation energy, energy conversion, electron transfer from water to NADP+, ATP generation and a series of enzymatic reactions that assimilate carbon dioxide and synthesize carbohydrate. Photosynthesis central concepts were established in the middle of the last century. Measurements of photosynthetic efficiency at different wavelengths of light led to the insight that two distinct forms of Chl. Calvins group who used 14CO2 radioactive tracers in the 1950s discovered the metabolic pathway that assimilates carbon by fixation of CO2. Document 3: http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/plant+sciences/book/978-160761-924-6 Photosynthesis in light, which is so weak that excitation rates are comparable to the decay rates of S-states, is modeled. It is found that oxygen evolution rate varies in a non-linear way with Photo system II excitation rate

in this region, but asymptotically approaches a linear relationship (with a slope of one oxygen molecule per four excitations) as excitation rate increases. The asymptote gives an intercept (zero oxygen evolution rate) on the excitation rate axis. The question is raised, whether this model is compatible with photo autotrophy in a red alga found at 268 m depth and able to carry out photosynthesis in extremely weak light. It is found that no unorthodox mechanisms for the S-cycle in this alga have to be assumed to explain its performance.