Word: aquaticus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...idea that America's space agency would one day focus on extreme microbes would have seemed utterly farfetched in the late 1960s, when researchers discovered a microbe known as Thermus aquaticus in near boiling springs in Yellowstone National Park. At the time, the bizarre creature seemed little more than a biological oddity...
...hugely profitable. Extremophiles survive by manufacturing all sorts of novel molecules. Some digest harsh chemicals; some protect DNA against destruction by radiation; some stave off searing heat or freezing cold. Entrepreneurs are racing to turn these molecules into products, just as was done in the 1980s with Thermus aquaticus, the Yellowstone bug exploited in the PCR technique widely used today to analyze...