Lars Behrendt

in a New Mexico cave.

Microbes are doing photosynthesis in total darkness, which sounds impossible until it rewrites what we think life needs to survive.

And then a conversation starts about where in the universe life might be hiding.

We're here with someone who has researched this weird, wacky life.

His name is Lars Behrendt.

He's a microbial ecologist at Uppsala University and the Technical University of Denmark.

Lars, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, David.

You go to a cave, you shine a flashlight, and then you see it glowing green.

What do you think?

You think someone's down there playing around with glow-in-the-dark stuff, or you're on to something very strange in the world of biology?

Look, I took biology in high school.

I did badly in biology in university.

When I hear photosynthesis in total darkness, I think that's a contradiction.

Don't you need sunlight for photosynthesis?

So infrared light that this life is soaking up, turning into food for itself.

It sounds almost science fiction.

Tell me about how it works a little bit more technically.

Let's talk different environments, because if we zoom out and we think of what life needs to actually live, that sounds weird, but I guess it makes sense.

We start to think out in the cosmos.