Day 6

More of this "dark reaction" has been revealed to me. After CO2 and RUBP (ribulose biphosphate, becasue there are now two phosphates from the ATP and NADPH2) combined, there were several complex steps that led to me turning into PGAL, which is a 3-carbon sugar that takes 1 CO2 to make 2 PGAL. After six turns of the Calvin cycle, 5 more carbon dioxide molecules are created (thus there is a total of 6), which is enough to "store" me in 1 molecule of glucose. That means I am in a 6-carbon glucose (C6H12O6). It was a gruelling and sometimes painful journey, but the process of photosynthesis is complete and I am free to live in glucose!

Day 5

I've been hearing things about a "Calvin cycle," or carbon fixation. Someone also told me it was called a "dark reaction." The NADPH2 created a couple of days ago gave up his H+ to carbon dioxide, and so now NADP is able to resued in the process over and over again. Apparently ATP does the same type of thing -- he gave up his energy and the phosphate he acquired from the H+ reservoir.

Day 4

Some of the hydrogen creates the H+ reservoir, again through the excited electrons that are losing energy! ADP decided to take a phosphate through the H+ reservoir to create ATP, and this is what is known as chemiosmosis. Then electrons that have gone through the long and gruelling process are returned to the chlorophyll and give it leave to be reactivated. I feel bad about making the electrons go through all that, but it's all good. Now that I've been absorbed and converted to chemical energy in the form of ATP (which is called a light reaction), I give millions of people the ability to live!

Day 3

The excited electrons left to calm down and were picked up by a transporter that took them into an accepting molecule in the thylakoid membrane. The accepting molecule left and took the electrons into photosystem I, and the light that shines through makes the electron-accepting molecule put all of its electrons in a protein. This combined with another carrier, NADP+,  which when combined with protein (and also the hydrogen released), became the energy-storage molecule NADPH2.

Day 2

Oops. My being in the thykaloid has excited the other electrons. The chlorophyll was activated and electrons running high with energy were released. The released electrons split the water molecule, and oxygen gas is given off and released though the stomates, which is a sort of pore in a plant, while carbon dioxide comes in. Apparently the oxygen that is released through the stomates is what "humans" breathe, and carbon dioxide is something they depend on the plants for getting rid of? Strange!

Day 1

I've arrived from the sun as sunlight and energy and found myself in a strange green world! The place is called a chloroplast, and it's located in a plant leaf cell. Through the inner membrane, a light-absorbing molecule called a pigment, specifically chlorophyll, absorbs me, and I'm now in a thykaloid, a flat saclike membrane, which is in a stack of other thykaloids (the stack is called a grana). This is a natural occurrence (a photochemical reaction), but I hope my presence isn't TOO exciting...