The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Most of life’s engines run on sunlight. Photons filter down through the atmosphere and are eagerly absorbed by light-powered organisms such as plants and algae. Through photosynthesis, the particles of light power a cellular reaction that manufactures chemical energy (inContinue Reading
Monica Retamosa was in the middle of changing the batteries of a tape recorder when she heard a bellbird for the first time. Standing on a forest floor, she looked up into the trees, scanning for the source of its metallic and powerful sound, searching for the bird for halfContinue Reading
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Prochlorococcus bacteria are so small that you’d have to line up around a thousand of them to match the thickness of a human thumbnail. The ocean seethes with them: The microbes are likely the most abundant photosynthetic organism on theContinue Reading
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Far from being solo operators, most single-celled microbes are in complex relationships. In the ocean, the soil, and your gut, they might battle and eat each other, exchange DNA, compete for nutrients, or feed on one another’s by-products. Sometimes theyContinue Reading
