The route of Life and Light

Life, through photosynthesis, uses light as a source of energy and information, thus keeping the characteristic order in the interior of cells and organisms and avoiding slide into chaos. In this lecture the chronicle of the interdependence between light and life will be examined, and the main landmarks in the establishment of their interrelationship during biological and planetary evolution will be mentioned. It will thus be shown that life, with its enormous biodiversity and great beauty, including intelligent life, would be impossible without photosynthesis.

Participants:
Ioannis (Yannis) Manetas: Professor Emeritus, University of Patra

Yiannis Manetas is Professor Emeritus at the University of Patras. He studied Natural Sciences at the University of Athens, and received his PhD in Biology from the University of Patras (1976). He still works at the same University. He has been a research fellow at the National Center for Scientific Research “Democritus” and at Universities in Sweden, Scotland and Germany. He is the author of three books in popular science, “Alice in the Land of Plants” (2010) , “Stories about Plants” (2014), “Life today, once, elsewhere and in the future: the logic of biological systems” (2018) , all published by Crete University Press. His novel “The night he embraced Gingko biloba” was published in 2017 by Aiora Press.
Crete University Press, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas