Genetically Modified Viruses Transmit Energy
An illustration of the genetically engineered virus used in the experiment. Chromophores are in red. Screenshot from MIT's YouTube video Plants absorb sunlight and convert it to energy with nearly perfect efficiency—none of the energy goes to waste. Electrical engineers are always striving for that kind of efficiency, but nowhere is it more pronounced than in solar panels. Even the best of these can only convert about 44 percent of the light it absorbs into usable energy, and that's part of the reason why solar energy doesn’t fulfill more of the world’s energy needs. How are plants so efficient? They’re able to take advantage of some quirks in quantum mechanics, often called quantum weirdness. When a photon hits a plant’s special light-sensing chromatophore, it releases a quantum particle of energy called an exciton....