This seems like really old news to me. We have been aware of bacterial rhodopsin for at least 30 years and knew that it acts as a proton pump allowing production of ATP in the usual electron transport way.

This has been all over the news, but it seems that all they did was add one such gene to E.coli and find Ta DA!! A proton gradient.

Did I miss something?

Mike, I find it interesting for two reasons:

First, a single gene coded for all the components needed to build a functional system.

Second, this “swappable” light harvesting system is very common in the bacterial world.

To me this indicates that some bacteria genes may have evolved as independent units that have co-evolved with bacterial “containers”. I’m thinking of modular software. The “light harvesting” module evolved to become a single, swappable functional unit. The bacterial “container” evolved so that it could use such swappable units. Thus the survival of the functional unit depends on all bacteria strains that can use the unit. The survival of the bacterial “container” depends on all the swappable units that the strain can use.

I'm thinking of the story possibilities here. :)

BTW, don't assume eukaryotic cells can't exchange genetic material. CF. Sticker's Sarcoma and Devil Facial Tumor Disease for a possible example.