Yellowstone National Park has yielded a new marvel, an unusual bacterium that converts light to energy. The discovery was made in a hot spring at the park where colourful mats of microbes drift in the warmth.
Plants use photosynthesis to turn light into energy, of course, and so do some other bacteria. But, the newly discovered type has "a new kind of photosynthesis. It uses the same kind of machinery, but has the parts in a different arrangement, a private TV channel reported. The find is going to be important for unravelling the history of photosynthesis, in determining how microbes efficiently harvest energy.
Finding a previously unknown, chlorophyll-producing microbe is the discovery of a lifetime," co-author Don Bryant, a professor of biotechnology at Penn State University, said in a statement. "I wouldn't have been as excited if I had reached into that mat and pulled out a gold nugget the size of my fist!"