
Can Planet Earth Feed 10B People? Humanity has 30 years to find out. - LearnerHerzog
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/charles-mann-can-planet-earth-feed-10-billion-people/550928/?single_page=true
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gilleain
>Alas, rubisco is, by biological standards, a sluggard, a lazybones, a couch
potato. ... Years ago I talked with biologists about photosynthesis for a
magazine article. Not one had a good word to say about rubisco.

That idea seems to have changed - and frankly was always a little unlikely.
From the wiki page on RuBisCO
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO)):

> A recent theory explores the trade-off between the relative specificity
> (i.e., ability to favour CO2 fixation over O 2 incorporation, which leads to
> the energy-wasteful process of photorespiration) and the rate at which
> product is formed. The authors conclude that RuBisCO may actually have
> evolved to reach a point of 'near-perfection' in many plants (with widely
> varying substrate availabilities and environmental conditions), reaching a
> compromise between specificity and reaction rate

Which seems more consistent with one of the highest copy number proteins
around with a vital role to play.

