Meet Chonkus, the mutant cyanobacteria that could help sink climate change

Stand back, ordinary ocean-dwelling, oxygen-spewing organisms: There’s a new green, hulkish mutant in town.

And hefty UTEX 3222 — dubbed “Chonkus” by the researchers who found it — may have just the right combination of traits to help with some of humanity’s most pressing problems. In particular, Chonkus could help fight climate change, report microbiologist Max Schubert, formerly of the Wyss Institute at Harvard and now launching a start-up, and colleagues in a study published October 29 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.  

Chonkus (right) settles quickly to the bottom of a water-filled test tube, compared with another strain of cyanobacteria (left). That quick accumulation of green sludge could

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