NEXT time you take in a lungful of oxygen, consider this: it was made possible in part by ocean viruses.
The viruses, which infect single-celled algae called cyanobacteria, are hyperefficient photosynthesisers thanks to a unique set of genes.
Previous work had shown that cyanophage viruses have some photosynthesis genes, apparently used to keep the host cyanobacteria on life support during the infection, which otherwise knocks out the cells’ basic functions.
Now from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa says that the cyanophages’ photosynthetic proficiency doesn’t stop there. While screening DNA sequences in water samples collected…
