False-coloured SEM of a siliceous skeleton of a diatom, Melosira. Diatoms are one of the most common types of phytoplankton and are found in most aquatic environments including fresh and marine waters ...

The radiating, kaleidoscopic pattern you see here was once the living glass skeleton – the cell wall – of a single-celled organism called a diatom. These organisms absorb silicon from their ...

A group of diatom species belonging to the Nitzschia genus gave up on photosynthesis and now get their carbon straight from their environment, thanks to a bacterial gene picked up by an ancestor.