What Diversa did was steal one microorganism's method of performing this at high temperatures.

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Life on Mars could have taken the form of a microorganism that used the minerals as an energy source.

CNN: NASA: Yes, Mars could have hosted life

Their discovery was a painstaking process: She had to purify samples down to a single microorganism, a step that took eight months.

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Such novel proteins may also hold the key to explaining Vibrio cholerae's great mystery: how a free-floating marine microorganism can turn into such a killer.

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