TWiM describes a potential connection between a bacterial protein that damages DNA and human cancers, and how to synthesize antimiicrobial natural products from reconstructed bacterial genomes of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic.
Ninecia and Chelsey, two of the founders of Black in Microbiology, join TWiM to discuss the goals of the organization, then we reveal survival of Deinococcus bacteria for 3 years in space, an experiment that addresses the panspermia hypothesis for interplanetary transfer of life.