A paper published last week in Nature Food details a method for doing just that. Photosynthesis uses a series of chemical reactions to convert carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight into glucose and oxygen. The light-dependent stage comes first and relies on sunlight to transfer energy to plants, which convert it to chemical energy. The light-independent stage (also called the Calvin Cycle) follows when this chemical energy and carbon dioxide are used to form carbohydrate molecules (like glucose).