Solved cryptogram
The oxygen in every breath is a waste product. Plants throw it away while stripping carbon.
Biology Facts, sourced to NCBI Bookshelf: Molecular Biology of the Cell.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 74 letters over 20 different ones, graded medium.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
Photosynthesis is after the carbon. Water molecules are split to supply the electrons for that job, and the oxygen atoms left over are dumped as a gas nobody wanted. Early in the history of the planet that waste was a poison: the atmosphere had almost no free oxygen, and the rise of it was a catastrophe for most of the life then living. Everything breathing today descends from the survivors of somebody else's pollution.
The claim comes from NCBI Bookshelf: Molecular Biology of the Cell.
- SourceNCBI Bookshelf: Molecular Biology of the Cell
- CollectionBiology Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length74 letters, 20 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- Brain Research Bulletineasy, 74 letters
- Georgia Institute of Technologymedium, 69 letters
- NCBI Bookshelf: Molecular Biology of the Cellmedium, 75 letters
- MedlinePlusmedium, 72 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- NCBI Bookshelfmedium, 77 letters
- National Human Genome Research Institutemedium, 70 letters
- NIGMSmedium, 76 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 78 letters