Cyanobacteria filaments under a microscope. Credit: Nottingham Trent University The mosaic of images illustrates how cyanobacteria filaments form stable patterns under different conditions.

At the University of Córdoba in Spain, not long ago, biologists snapping images of the cyanobacteria under a microscope saw a cell that had grown a long, thin tube and grabbed hold of its neighbor.

When María del Carmen Muñoz-Marín, one of the study's authors, looked at Prochlorococcus under a microscope ... nanotubes have been identified in cyanobacteria, which share nutrients and ...