It might be exaggerating to call this a ‘historic’ moment, but it is certainly notable. Almost two and a half centuries after the physician and botanist Jan IngenHousz discovered what photosynthesis does, about a dozen distant descendants gathered in a field in Wageningen on a Wednesday afternoon in October to measure that same process. They are in fact descendants of Jan’s only brother, as Jan himself did not have children.

Jan Maarten Ingen Housz (he writes his surname as two separate words) has just explained how the device he is holding works. It looks like one of those first-generation mobile phones, but it is actually a device for measuring photosynthesis in the field. People around the world use it.

The handheld meter was developed by David Kramer, who is the scientific director of the Jan IngenHousz Institute, which WUR set up last year. The institute aims to increase food production by boosting photosynthesis. WUR decided to name it after Jan IngenHousz, the Dutch ‘father’ of photosynthesis.

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