Light Harvesting Complex II (LHCII) serves a central role in light harvesting for oxygenic photosynthesis, and is arguably the most important photosynthetic antenna complex. In this work, we present two-dimensional electronic-vibrational (2DEV) spectra of LHCII isolated from spinach, demonstrating the possibility of using this technique to track the transfer of electronic excitation energy betw...

In this paper, we propose a physics-based method to synthesize facial images in visible wavelengths from multi-band near infrared (NIR) images. The study on photometric properties of human skin shows that melanin and hemoglobin components are dominant factors that affect the skin appearance under different light spectrum. Specifically, a set of intensities observed at a certain surface point wi...

Digitonin extracts have been prepared from the retinae of a dozen species of marine and euryhaline teleost fishes from turbid water habitats. Spectrophotometric analysis of the extracts shows that the photosensitive retinal pigments of these species have maximum absorption above 500 mmicro. In nine species there are retinene(1) pigments with lambda(max) between 504 and 512 mmicro. In the marine...

Maximizing light capture by light-harvesting pigment optimization represents an attractive but challenging strategy to improve photosynthetic efficiency. Here, we report that loss of a previously uncharacterized gene, HIGH PHOTOSYNTHETIC EFFICIENCY1 (HPE1), optimizes light-harvesting pigments, leading to improved photosynthetic efficiency and biomass production. Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thalian...

Ultraviolet (UV) and violet vision in vertebrates is mediated by UV and violet visual pigments that absorb light maximally (lambdamax) at approximately 360 and 390-440 nm, respectively. So far, a total of 11 amino acid sites only in transmembrane (TM) helices I-III are known to be involved in the functional differentiation of these short wavelength-sensitive type 1 (SWS1) pigments. Here, we hav...

The butterfly Heliconius erato can see from the UV to the red part of the light spectrum with color vision proven from 440 to 640 nm. Its eye is known to contain three visual pigments, rhodopsins, produced by an 11-cis-3-hydroxyretinal chromophore together with long wavelength (LWRh), blue (BRh) and UV (UVRh1) opsins. We now find that H. erato has a second UV opsin mRNA (UVRh2)-a previously und...

The effects of lights with different wavelengths on the growth and the yield of extracellular polysaccharides of Nostoc flagelliforme cells were investigated in a liquid cultivation. N. flagelliforme cells were cultured for 16 days in 500 ml conical flasks containing BG11 culture medium under 27 micromol·m-2·s-1 of light intensity and 25 degrees C on a rotary shaker (140 rpm). The chlorophyll a...

Chlorosomes are large light-harvesting complexes found in three phyla of anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria. Chlorosomes are primarily composed of self-assembling pigment aggregates. In addition to the main pigment, bacteriochlorophyll c, d, or e, chlorosomes also contain variable amounts of carotenoids. Here, we use X-ray scattering and electron cryomicroscopy, complemented with absorption spe...

Marine animals, especially those from tropical waters, are often brilliantly coloured, and bright colouration is widespread in both sessile and non-sessile invertebrates. These spectacular natural colours are common in species inhabiting shallow waters, and appear not only in animals exposed to bright light, but also in those living in dark areas where colours are visible only with artificial i...