Pursuing this incredible organism's potential is young Adán Ramirez Sánchez—23-year-old Mexican biotechnician and winner of MIT's 2019 Latin American Innovators Under 35—who has made solar panels powered by algae instead of minerals mined from the earth.

His Intelligent Solar Biopanels, made at his firm GreenFluidics, are one part microalgae, one part nanotechnology, and they absorb CO2 before converting it into electricity and oxygen, potentially solving two of the largest problems of our time.

If you paid attention in biology class, you may notice a similarity between this and the evolutionary strategy of photosynthesis, the method by which plants generate energy from CO2 and sunlight.