Living organisms are surprisingly creative when it comes to finding their way into hostile environments. Microbes, after all, thrive everywhere from hyperarid deserts and hydrothermal vents to the stratosphere. Of all hostile environments, one might think the most unbreachable to be the laboratory, where populations of bacteria are stored inside tubes sealed with tight screw-caps and stacked in freezers at -80'C. Of course, normal evolutionary processes don't magically stop at the doors of the lab: organisms still mutate, fragile microbial species can still be out-competed by faster-growing contaminants, and parasites can still spread. However, vigilant scientists devote considerable effort to making sure containers hold what is written on their labels and, when in doubt, can sequence any part of a sample's DNA, discarding or incinerating undesired specimens. Still, interlopers persist. One organism that has been particularly successful at infiltrating microbiology research...
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