Peking University scientist says solar-activated mineral water improves photosynthetic efficiency across major crops.
      • balsoft@lemmy.ml
        4·
        2 days ago

        I haven’t read the paper but the article smells of bullshit. Extraordinary and unsubstantiated claims in one field (H-bond changing because of a manganese cluster and sunlight???), popping up during research in some other, barely related field, suggests to me that either SCMP journalists made insane shit up again (as they often do with popsci articles) or the original paper didn’t have any chemists peer review it.

          • anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            41·
            2 days ago

            There is a lot of marketing speek and my translation isn’t the best, but here is some content as I understood it.
            Claims photosynthesis outside the chloroplast.
            Claims improvement mineral content (do they mean uptake?), including minerals that have nothing to do with their infusions.
            Claims improvements but don’t have a control group.
            Claims something with infrared light but don’t have a spectrum.

            All we can conclude from that, is that they watered some plant during a historically hot year and they grew.

        • anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          3·
          2 days ago

          The proposed mechanism: minerals absorb broader wavelengths of sunlight and convert them into energy that alters water’s physical properties, including hydrogen-bond structure, making water easier to split during photosynthesis.
          […]
          In the field method described by the team, mineral powder was added to ordinary irrigation water at about 0.5 per cent, stirred under sunlight for one hour and then allowed to settle, with the clear water above the settled materials then used for irrigation.
          Because the minerals did not dissolve in the water, the materials at the bottom could be reused, they said.

          It’s just homeopathy.