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.
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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 unique
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