[Redcloak]

Being latecomers, microbes that used chlorophyll could not compete directly with those utilizing retinal, but they survived by evolving the ability to absorb the very wavelengths retinal did not use, DasSarma said.

Speaking as an optical engineer, that's the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. Does he think that the "un-utilized" photons were just rolling around on the ground, waiting for plants with chlorophyll to scoop them up?

[antiRepublicrat]

Does he think that the "un-utilized" photons were just rolling around on the ground, waiting for plants with chlorophyll to scoop them up?

I think he's saying that since one class of life was all over the place and absorbing one set of the light spectrum, instead of competing another grew to absorb a different set of the spectrum.

Isn't there a reverse of this, a "green window" effect?

[null and void]

Speaking as an optical engineer, that's the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. Does he think that the "un-utilized" photons were just rolling around on the ground, waiting for plants with chlorophyll to scoop them up?

No. But the green wasn't available because it was being sucked up by the retinal. A soup of purple (brown algae?) bacteria, would act like a band reject filter for greens, with lots of red and blue available.

You were assuming big plants, not the single cell stuff that drives new divisions.