A type of freshwater plankton has become the first organism seen thriving on a diet of viruses, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US.
Viruses are often consumed incidentally by a range wide of organisms, and may even season the diets of certain marine protists. But to qualify as a true step in the food chain – described as virovory – viruses ought to contribute a significant amount of energy or nutrients to their consumer.
The microbe Halteria is a common genus of protist known to flit about as its hair-like cilia propel it through the water. Not only did laboratory samples of the ciliate consume chloroviruses added to its environment, the giant virus fueled Halteria’s growth and increased its population size.
Taming rays of light and bending them to your will is tricky business. Light travels fast and getting a good chunk of it to stay in one place for a long time requires a lot of skillful coaxing. But the benefits of learning how to hold a moonbeam (or, more likely, a laser beam) in your hand, or on a convenient chip, are enormous. Trapping and controlling light on a chip can enable better lasers, sensors that help self-driving cars “see,” the creation of quantum-entangled pairs of photons that can be used for secure communication, and fundamental studies of the basic interactions between light and atoms—just to name a few.
