tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10092066.post114012439754331632..comments2024-01-08T00:40:50.918-08:00Comments on The Dragon's Tales: While I am waiting...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10092066.post-1140189942821430212006-02-17T07:25:00.000-08:002006-02-17T07:25:00.000-08:00Yeah, I've read that one too. I get a little obses...Yeah, I've read that one too. I get a little obsessive.<BR/><BR/>I'm not conjecturing the photosynthesis of the Permian was _wildly_ different from the current kind -- it would still be recognizable as a relative of the same kind of photosynthesis as in spinach -- but with different important biochemical details, in the same way that we have C3, C4, and CAM plants today. (CAM -- Crassulacean Acid Metabolism -- has evolved separately over twenty different times. When it's time to railroad...)<BR/><BR/>I believe there have been isotope effect studies in coal, but all they show is the carbon-fixing step, and we've already learned from genetic studies that Rubisco is an old enzyme that hasn't changed much in its active site for hundreds of millions of years. So those isotope effects would be indistinguishable from a modern C3 plant's 'footprint'.<BR/><BR/>Let me recommend Lovelock's autobiography. While some of the fringe have gone overboard with the Gaia hypothesis, Lovelock is one of those level-headed Brits who has mastered his field by the DIFBY method.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com