J. Craig Venter's fishing filters find fresh, fascinating food for feasting photosynthesis fans!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 38_pf.html
It took some mighty fine nets, but scientists who spent two years trawling the world's oceans for bacteria and viruses have completed the most thorough census ever of marine microbial life, revealing an astonishingly diverse and bizarre microscopic menagerie...
...Among them are more than 2,000 "proteorhodopsins," each of which can convert certain wavelengths of sunlight into biological energy through means wholly independent of photosynthesis, the process used by green vegetation. That gives scientists a slew of new methods to mimic for getting energy from the sun, Venter said.
Some new genes seem designed to help organisms get energy from carbon dioxide in the air, a tantalizing alternative to the oil and coal that most human technologies rely on. Researchers hope those biological blueprints may show them how to scrub greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
J. Craig Venter's fishing filters find fresh, fascinating fo
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