Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 401
THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF CLAY. AND PHOTOSYNTHESIS IN EVOLUTION resonance energy can be transferred from one pigment molecule to another until it is eventually channelled into a slightly different chlorophyll molecule from which it cannot escape. This final energy-trapping type of chlorophyll can receive an input from as many as 300 of the standard chlorophyll molecules. The energy from the light is thus very highly concentrated at a single site, giving the second molecule the ability to transfer an electron to a non-pigment receptor which in turn passes it, via an intermediate set of carriers, to. NADP. . . . But the essential point to note is that, with the exception of the chlorophyll-containing apparatus responsible for the splitting of water and hence providing the primary energy source, all the reactions of photosynthesis, fixation of carbon dioxide, and synthesis of sugars follow pathways with which we are already familiar in the biochemistry of the animal cell. "12 of. In the most complicated huge molecule chlorophyll, there is an immensely long chain of atoms precisely arranged in a sequence which if altered, at even a single link, will completely destroy the very function and significance of chlorophyll. Life in every form owes its existence to this fundamental trap of energy, but carbohydrates thus produced cannot be utilized by life directly. The chain of all chemical reactions that follow depend on ATP and ADP, chemicals which essentially contain three or two phosphate groups. In both these chemicals the phosphorus groups play the central role. It is this most important ingredient which is present in every living cell of both plants and animals. It runs the immensely vast factory which provides a multitude of organic chemicals needed by the living. 390