A new study sheds light on how the ancestors of modern land plants survived one of the most challenging aspects of life outside water: exposure to harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. By examining a microscopic alga closely related to the earliest land plants, researchers have uncovered a sophisticat ed and dynamic system for coping with sunburn—one that likely helped plants colonize land more than 500 million years ago. The results are published in Current Biology. ...read more read less