The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth's Biogeochemical Cycles

@article{Falkowski2008TheME,
  title={The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth's Biogeochemical Cycles},
  author={Paul G. Falkowski and Tom M. Fenchel and Edward F. Delong},
  journal={Science},
  year={2008},
  volume={320},
  pages={1034 - 1039}
}
Virtually all nonequilibrium electron transfers on Earth are driven by a set of nanobiological machines composed largely of multimeric protein complexes associated with a small number of prosthetic groups. These machines evolved exclusively in microbes early in our planet's history yet, despite their antiquity, are highly conserved. Hence, although there is enormous genetic diversity in nature, there remains a relatively stable set of core genes coding for the major redox reactions essential… 
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