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PLANT SCIENCE / 09

Secondary Metabolite Lab

One carbon supply. Many ways to survive.

ACTIVE TIME 90sPLANT HEALTH 100GROWTH 0 / 26EXPERIMENT 1 / 6

THE ALLOCATION EXPERIMENT

Grow a plant. Fund its chemistry.

Meet six changing conditions. Allocate each round’s 12 carbon credits, then run the experiment. Keep the plant healthy and produce at least 26 growth units.

Every credit sent to specialized metabolism is a credit unavailable for growth.

Carbon credits, nitrogen costs, targets, health and the 90-second clock are game abstractions. Metabolites can have overlapping roles; these challenges illustrate selected examples.

For the curious at heart. A pocket-sized collection of science-inspired games.
Made for a quick break, a little discovery, and one more round.

DESKTOP / TABLET / MOBILE · Your browser is your playground.

How to Play

Complete six rounds within 90 seconds of active play. Each round provides a fresh budget of 12 carbon and 3 nitrogen credits. Unused credits do not carry over.

  1. Read the current condition and the targets on the four branch cards.
  2. Use + and − to allocate or reclaim credits. Growth, phenolics and terpenoids each cost 1 carbon per unit. Alkaloids cost 2 carbon + 1 nitrogen per unit.
  3. Tap Run Experiment to commit. Every missing growth target unit costs 6 health; every missing specialized target unit costs 8 health. Extra units do not substitute for another branch.
  4. Finish all six rounds with health above zero and at least 26 growth units. On timeout, only the current allocation is committed, and the experiment ends.

Controls: mouse or touch buttons; keys 1–4 add to a branch, Shift + 1–4 undo, Enter runs the experiment, P pauses, H opens this guide. Pause, this guide and hiding the tab freeze the clock. Resume manually after switching tabs.

The biology behind the budget

Primary metabolism supplies carbon skeletons and energy for growth and specialized metabolism. Selected flavonoids illustrate UV screening, volatile terpenoids illustrate ecological defense signals, and selected alkaloids illustrate feeding deterrence. Alkaloids contain nitrogen. These are examples, not exclusive functions of entire metabolite classes.

Real pathways also require energy, enzymes and other resources. Specialized metabolites may influence growth and development themselves. Credit costs, health effects, replenishment and targets are invented for play; they do not represent molecular stoichiometry or predicted plant performance.

Further reading: Growth and specialized metabolism · The overlapping functions of plant metabolites