Earlier this week, we reported on research efforts to produce hydrogen gas for fuel cells through artificial photosynthesis and discovered the technology was still a long way off. Well, how about good old natural photosynthesis? That, too, is a process in its infancy because there are quite a few things we need to manipulate in order to produce enough hydrogen to make it worth our while.

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It could be an aerial photo of an oil spill: liquid spheres pooling, oozing, dwarfing a bedraggled landscape. I half expect to zoom in on poisoned seal pups or waterbirds dragging their oil-soaked feathers. But the scene is microscopic. The “landscape” is made of E. coli. And what’s happening is exactly the opposite of what it seems. The little bugs aren’t drowning in fuel. They’re making it.

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Two-stroke engines are simple, light, and powerful. Unlike a four-stroke engine (the kind you find in a car), they can be operated at any angle. That's why you find them in lawnmowers, leaf blowers, chainsaws, and on boats as outboard motors. They come with significant disadvantages, however. They are terribly inefficient with fuel. They don't have a dedicated lubrication system and so burn the oil they use (if cars used two-stroke engines, they would burn a gallon of oil every 1,000 miles). And worst of all, they leak fuel through their exhaust by design.

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