Wyoming’s Prismatic Spring Opened DNA Science

DNA tests are used for many things today.

Finding out who we are related to.

Finding murderers or the identity of victims who were murdered.

Identifying if someone has a genetic disease.

The list is very long.

Did you know that Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring has something to do with today's modern DNA science?

At one time it was thought that nothing could live in such high temperatures.

But then why is the spring the color that it is?

Because there is life in there.

Scientists have figured out how to read a long strand of DNA. But the process of finding what they were looking for in that strand took months.

Part of the problem was that in order to separate a DNA strand to look at it the temperature needed to be turned up.

But that would kill what they were looking at.

Could anything survive such high temperatures?

Then a young scientist began poking around Wyoming's most colorful pool, looking for life. Everyone told him that he would not find any. BUT HE DID!

The clues that he found in the life he discovered led the way to figuring out how to open up DNA and spot what we were looking for.

The video below tells the story.

Just a word of warning, the main character in the story of DNA is a JERK!

Honestly, he's just the weirdest person you'll ever hear about.

Yet what he did for humanity with his idea of how to examine DNA changed the world.

It was a colorful pool in Yellowstone that gave him the tools to do it.