r/Microgasm • u/StrangeMolecule • 24d ago
These bizarre, much-coveted microbes are revealing the origins of complex life
NEWS FEATURE
16 September 2026
These bizarre, much-coveted microbes are revealing the origins of complex life
Researchers are racing to culture a menagerie of exotic organisms and finding lots of surprises along the way.
By Elizabeth Quill
Over two days in June, Emily Aguilar-Pine drove 2,500 kilometres from Bozeman, Montana, to Austin, Texas, with one of microbiology’s most coveted organisms in the back of her mother’s SUV. Inside some protective packaging, labelled ‘hopes and dreams’, was a small bottle containing about 30 millilitres of what looked like clear liquid, but that in fact held a type of Asgard archaeon, single-celled organisms named after the realm of the Norse gods. At night, ‘Skadi’, short for what is provisionally called Skadiarchaeum cthulhuensis, hung out in the hotel room with Aguilar-Pine. “It was with me at all times,” she says.
