Tasting Sunshine

Life is Sweet
When plants photosynthesize, they capture light energy and trap it as chemical energy. Sunlight becomes a carbon-hydrogen-oxygen molecule called pentose sugar. When we taste sugar, we are tasting sunlight. Likewise, when we smell flowers, we smell sunlight. Unfortunately, sunshine also has obnoxious tastes and smells.
Five carbons plus some oxygen and hydrogen are the basis of all life on this planet. Add a little nitrogen to the pentose sugar and the result is amino acids and bases. Add a phosphate molecule to sugar and an amine to make a nucleotide. Nucleotides linked together make DNA. Or string a few of those amino acids together to form protein. Add minerals to make bones, shells, teeth, and fingernails.
Pentose sugars link together with other various chemicals to form cellulose, starches, fats and oils, and every other molecule that is called life on Earth. Organic chemistry is not as difficult as it is made out to be.
Nancy Sherer