WHY do deep-sea bacteria glow? Scientists in Poland say they’ve cracked this
long-standing biological mystery: the bacteria shine, it seems, to repair their
DNA after it has been damaged by ultraviolet radiation that penetrates deep into
the ocean.
Many species of marine bacteria produce light, a phenomenon known as
bioluminescence. But the process takes a lot of energy, and it is unclear what
they get in return. “Bioluminescence takes up several per cent of the cell’s
energy,” says molecular biologist Grzegorz Wegrzyn from Gdansk University.
Wegrzyn and his colleagues studied a free-living luminescent bacterium called
Vibrio harveyi. They found that…
