For hundreds of years after the Willow Experiment, hordes of researchers tried to understand how plants did what they did with the help of experiments involving candles, vacuum-sealed jars and many different species of algae. The three men who finally cracked it were American scientists by the names of Melvin Calvin, Andrew Benson and James Bassham. For the discovery, Calvin was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The process was baptised the ‘Calvin-Benson-Bassham Cycle’. Since it’s not the catchiest name, we commonly refer to it as photosynthesis: the process of turning carbon dioxide
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