A new study published in Science found that cyanobacteria have a sense of the seasons.
Cyanobacteria produce energy from sunlight through photosynthesis, so it would make sense that adjusting to seasons with more or less sunlight could have some survival advantages. However, what makes this amazing is that a cyanobacterium lives for only five hours before it divides,
Somehow, these microscopic organisms understand the timing of the seasons even though each individual organism will only be alive during an infinitesimal fraction of a single season.
Makes my students’ complaints about memorizing their multiplication facts sound a little ridiculous.
Right?
I can’t wait to tell them.
