Becoming Treebeard

                                                                                                                         Treebeard-Ent

                        Mandrake

The idea of being able to perform photosynthesis is an AWESOME idea to our entire group. Cassidy’s friends never seem to see her eat so they have concluded that she performs photosynthesis in order to live. Honestly we would all love to actually be able to perform photosynthesis. So the idea of creating a green human is very intriguing. In order to become a green human we would need to change the human anatomy. We would need to add plant like characteristics to our bodies in order to carry out the transfer of light into sugar and other usable nutrients. The exact equation that is used in photosynthesis is 6CO₂+6H₂O (+light energy) --->C6H₁₂O6+6O₂.

      In order to be green we would need the green pigment called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll absorbs light and uses it to turn the tissues of a plant a shade of green.

         Photosynthesis is primarily performed in the leaves of a plant. This thus means we would need leaves. In Cassidy’s mind of jumbled craziness she imagines we would have leaves and vines for our hair...delightful isn’t it? However only having hair of leaves probably wouldn't provide enough energy to sustain our typically energetic lives. Having leaves anywhere else would just be weird so we would need to have some sort of new skin that had similar components to leaves. There’s also the possibility of having extra appendages and go all Avatar with an energy absorbing tail or something.

     Also the Calvin cycle would need to be performed. In the Calvin cycle light is taken in. During a light reaction ATP and NADPH is changed into NADP* and ADP + PI. Basically light, water and Co2 is changed into Sugar and O2.

         Because humans are humans there is a good chance there would be ethical problems. Nobody can put up with anything that is different and green humans would most certainly freak people out seriously. Cassidy keeps seeing this as an Avatar sort of situation where regular humans would power trip and be unaware of the harm they would cause to a new “species." If something is wrong, or regular humans see a problem. they would do anything in their power to “fix” it.

To Cassidy’s despair humans would still need to sleep. The cells in our bodies would still need to restore themselves even with various plant characteristics.  All in all there a various forms we could take in order to become photosynthetic humans, and no one form is right.