MTS41 - Sallie Chisholm - Harvesting the Sun
In this episode I speak to Sallie "Penny" Chisholm, the\xa0Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies at MIT.\xa0Dr. Chisholm studies photosynthesis\u2014the way life harnesses the energy of the sun. Plants carry out photosynthesis, but so do\xa0microbes in the ocean. Dr. Chisholm studies the most abundant of these photosynthetic microbes,\xa0a species of bacteria called Prochlorococcus. \xa0There are a trillion trillion Prochlrococcus on Earth. Dr. Chisholm researches these microbial lungs of the biosphere, and how they produce oxygen on which we depend.
\nAlong with her scientific research, Dr. Chisholm is also the author of a new children's book,\xa0Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring The Earth To Life.