Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis
A good background on photosynthesis is available from this page from the General Biology class page at Estrella Mountain Community College particularly the discussion of the stages of photosynthesis.

Why Study Photosynthesis?
This page produced by the Photosynthesis Center at Arizona State University provides a good background to why photosynthesis is so important to all life on Earth.

The First 100 Picoseconds of Photosynthesis
This is a fairly technical page that concerns some research at the Cornell Theory Center of Cornell University. Specifically, the researchers are interested in understanding the photosynthetic processes as they occur over very short time intervals (i.e., 100-200 picoseconds, where a picosecond is 10^-12 seconds). In the scientists' own words:

"Despite the fact that ultrafast spectroscopic techniques have provided key insights into the process of light harvesting, they cannot probe these processes in sufficient detail to understand the relationship between structure and function. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, we have recently combined computer simulations of excited state energy transfer in model photosynthetic antennae with ps[picosecond] and fs [femtosecond: 10^-15 seconds] optical studies. The simulations have the benefit of providing an exact time-dependent description of excited state motion at essentially infinite temporal and spectral resolution, allowing us to probe details of structure and function that are experimentally inaccessible."