A research project, led by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI); the University of California, Los Angeles; and the Carnegie Institution, and including contributions from over 100 international collaborators has uncovered hundreds of genes of a tiny green alga. Among the 15,000-plus genes revealed in the study are those that are uniquely associated with carbon dioxide capture and generation of biomass and also those that encode the structure and function of the specialized organelle that houses the photosynthetic apparatus, the chloroplast, which is responsible for converting light to chemical energy. The genome also provides a glimpse back through time to the last common ancestor of plants and animals. The research article is featured in the Oct. 12 edition of the journal Science.