The Sugar Shuffle with Dice and Nintendo

Plants do miracles all the time.  They take air and turn it into a pear!  That banana you are eating is made up of a specially kind of energized air!  Tastes good I hope!  Essentially, carbon dioxide is incorporated into a five carbon molecule, by the almighty RuBisCo Enzyme.

Note that the dice with dots represent the number of carbon atoms in a molecule.  The other elements like oxygen and hydrogen are not included for simplification.  But note, it takes six trips around this cycle to get enough 'carbon playdough' to make glucose, which can later become an apple or orange.

There is a starting point and ending point, which has a blue flag to show the goal of absorbing carbon dioxide. 

Underneath, the caputure of carbon phase, is the Sugar Shuffle, where the molecules that captured that infamous green house gas are replenished.

When you hear about Carbon Dioxide, you might think it's a green house gas, that is true, but it can also be labeled as a food-making-gas.

 Amazing but true, when you break down all the bread or rice that you eat, guess what it is turned into...Carbon Dioxide (most of it).  Think about it, food is actually energized air!  This yummy to be air (CO2) is energized by starlight, aka the Sun.

The process above can be called the Calvin-Benson Cycle or Calvin Cycle.

The one part of the cycle that is hardly ever shown in detail is the regeneration of carbon caputuring molecules in a process called-The Sugar Shuffle.  This is where five 3-carbon molecules become three 5-carbon molecules (which can capture carbon dioxide).

Sugar Shuffle = five 3-Carbon molecules become three 5-Carbons molecules

Domino Sugar & Crisco Logo Modified for the Fun of Science!

The colours of company product are set like the livery of a university.  Sometimes they change, like when a merger happens.

But here we have jaw dropping fun that is a total game changer!  So get ready to be empowered by science and all the samey lamey, blah?

People who do science are such parrots after all.

Have you met a person with an original thought?  Or is everything they say, a routine, that fits into the established discorsial norms of society? 

Nonetheless, all tangents are allowed on this blog!  So we can be thankful for Domino Shuger!

Did you ever notice that sugar is spelled like SUE...GAR?

Also, scientists get the whole thing about sugars all wack!  Usually, most people think that sugar is a sweet tasting white molecule, which can also be brown.  But sugar in science land can mean a whole lot of non-sweetness. Biologists and other scientists forget that what normal society thinks of sugar...which IS sucrose...

...NOT glucose, maltose, galactose, schmactose, furcktose, scmucktose, or stupidose. 

For most of society sugar means sucrose, PERIOD.  But science people like to hi-jack concepts like the original elements that were known as fire, water, air, and earth.  But hey, surely someday another generation down the road will redefine elements and the known scientific elements will be a concept of the past for superstitious folk.

So in honor of random thoughts, and glucose...enjoy this fun post.

Seriously, RuBisCo really is a cool thing, since it takes an inorganic molecule and makes it organic.  The magik is that RuBisCo it turns non-living matter...into living matter. 

BUT...when you think deeply about it, the construct of labeling carbon dioxide as an inorganic substance (not alive) is just an arbitrary hewmaun cerebral construct.  Life is life, with or without the high minded, objective mind to saying so, according to some rational mumbojumbo.


Yet, RuBisCo is a really important enzyme; it can't be overstated how cool it really is.  It is the most abundant part of life that makes all the other forms of life, downstream possible. In the end, be thankful for RuBisCo, and while your at it, Crisco too!

Hexidecimal π Day Flag

Hey it's another π Day flag, but taken from the hexidecimal way of counting.  So the first three digits of π are 3.24 instead of the more familiar 3.14.

Cuban π Day Flag

Puerto Rican π Day Flag

Panama π Day Flag

Portugal π Day Flag