Single-celled bacterium works 24-7, converting light to energy by day, moonlighting at night

Cyanothece is a unicellular bacterium that can capture energy from light and also fix atmospheric nitrogen. As part of a daily diurnal cycle, Cyanothece stores the products of photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation so that they can be used at the proper time. This ability makes Cyanothece an ideal system to understand how a unicellular organism balances and regulates complex processes in the same cell. Image courtesy of The Pakrasi Lab