Light to Life

In Light to Life, biologist Raffael Jovine takes us on a journey of discovery into the intricate, beautiful and often surprising processes that convert energy from the sun into life and how all-important these are to our survival.

Despite the unprecedented challenges the Earth faces from global warming, habitat loss, air pollution and population growth; Jovine shows us that there is hope to be found. Photosynthesis is the very source of life: it has the power not just to produce food, but to reshape continents, drive biogeochemical cycles, stabilise the climate and regulate weather.

In this exciting, revelatory book, Jovine unveils a blueprint for the future: greening the desert, bringing the ocean on land, planting mangrove forests and oyster banks, growing algae for animal feed, human food and soil carbon... He demonstrates how by harnessing photosynthesis we can regenerate the planet and revise the way we human beings interact with it.

This book will help you to see the world in a different way, in all its wonderful detail - through the photosynthetic pigments in your eyes.

About the Author

Raffael Jovine was born and raised in Munich, and educated in Britain and the US. He trained in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, did his PdD in Marine Sciences, then researched the photosynthetic strategies that enable algae to outcompete other organisms at MIT. He is the founder and chief scientist for a company that uses seawater, sunlight and wind to grow food in coastal deserts, replicating algal blooms. He is married with five children and lives in London.