Whenever we open a dark room, we always turn on the lights. Similarly, plants follow the same process but the protein switches they flip sense whether light is present or not. Now, an international team of researchers that includes Rice bioscientist and co-principal investigator George Phillips and co-lead author and former postdoctoral researcher Jonathan Clinger has shed light on the mechanism by which plants regulate photosynthesis to consume the sun’s abundant energy. Until now, that process was unlikely to be recognized. Now, a powerful form of X-ray crystallography operated by Phillips and his collaborators helped to get detailed insights on this unusual phenomenon.