“I think it’s a beautiful [study],’ says Glass, noting that researchers have previously shown similar light-driven processes in atmospheric aerosols, but never in aquatic environments. “As we’ve been sequencing more and more genomes in the environment a lot of us have moved really into that -omics space, looking for key markers for genes … This just goes to show that sometimes it’s not biological,” she says. “You have to think outside the box and consider all the chemistry that can be happening, not just the enzymes.”