Cyanobacteria perceive light the way human eyes do

Researchers at the Institute of Biology III and the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) collaborated with researchers from Karlsruhe and London, England, to study how bacteria can perceive light and react to it. They observed cyanobacteria, which has existed on the planet since 2.5 billion years and is present wherever there’s light, and are central component of biosphere. The research team found that cyanobacteria use their microoptic properties to detect the source of light and can then move toward the source of light in precision. Cyanobacterium is a round unicellular organism and acts like a lens wherein the light falls as a focal point on the opposite side of the cell and the cell moves away from this point to the actual source of light. "This physical principle is actually hardly different from the way light is focused in the lenses of our eyes," the leading researcher explains. The researchers want to conduct further study to understand the influence of cellular structure on the way the light is collected.

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