(urth) The green man is a fake

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>

> > From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
> 
> > 
> > On  1/16/2011 6:31 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > > He's "the color of  pale  jade".  This means he absorbs less visible light 

> > >than current
> > > plants (Ribes?).  If  Wolfe had said "blackish jade", it  would have been a 
>
> > > step in the direction of  plausibility.
> > 
> > He  might be bleached out from lack of light, the way grass  is when 
>something 
>
> >is left covering it for a few days, then removed. On his  second  appearance, 
>he 
>
> >is merely jade colored, indicating a partial   recovery.
> 
> Good one.  I really should have figured that  out.
> 
> However, the reason for this phenomenon of etiolation seems to be so  the plant 
>
> can
> put its resources into growth to reach the sun and not into  chlorophyll in the 
>
> dark, which will be  useless.
> 
> http://books.google.com/books?id=0ZtXx54h75MC&pg=PA745#v=onepage&q&f=false
> 
> This  wouldn't apply to the green man--I can't see why he'd etiolate when he's 

> genetically engineered and it would be better for him always to be ready  to
> photosynthesize.

Okay, if green people are trapped in the dark, maybe they should be using their
resources to get out of the trap, so maybe it would make sense for their algae 
to
be engineered to etiolate.

Jerry Friedman