Solved cryptogram
The wood in a tree came out of the air. Hardly any of that weight was taken from the soil.
Biology Facts, sourced to Georgia Institute of Technology.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 69 letters over 19 different ones, graded medium.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
Photosynthesis pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and uses the energy in sunlight to bolt the carbon into sugar, and sugar is what wood is made from. Soil supplies water and a trace of minerals, and that is nearly all it supplies. Van Helmont settled the question in the seventeenth century by weighing a potted willow and its soil for five years: the tree gained scores of kilograms and the soil lost almost nothing.
The claim comes from Georgia Institute of Technology.
- SourceGeorgia Institute of Technology
- CollectionBiology Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length69 letters, 19 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- PNASmedium, 72 letters
- Brain Research Bulletineasy, 74 letters
- NCBI Bookshelf: Molecular Biology of the Cellmedium, 74 letters
- NCBI Bookshelf: Molecular Biology of the Cellmedium, 75 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- U.S. National Park Servicemedium, 71 letters
- MedlinePlusmedium, 69 letters
- NIDDKmedium, 72 letters
- Frontiers in Psychologymedium, 68 letters