The Bacteria in the Hot Spring That Made DNA Testing Possible
The Bacteria in the Hot Spring That Made DNA Testing Possible — a science story. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder Science.
Page 1
Dawn broke over the Lower Geyser Basin in curls of white steam, and Great Fountain Geyser let out a booming roar as it blasted a column of water taller than a house into the pink sky. The gust that followed tore straight down the boardwalk and snatched the straw hat clean off Brock's head. It went skittering and bouncing across the wooden planks, flipping end over end past startled boot-heels. Hudson was already running, rubber slicker squeaking, net swinging low, and he slammed the bent green hoop down hard right over the tumbling hat, pinning it flat against the boards. But kneeling there, catching his breath, he froze. In the scalding runoff channel beside him ran ribbons of impossible color — streaks of hot pink and burnt orange threading through the water like paint that refused to wash away. Juniper crouched quick beside him, bracing a hand on his shoulder, while Mina scrambled up on her knees, hard hat tipping over her eyebrows as she leaned in close, binoculars swinging.
Page 2
Mushroom Pool steamed gently, wider than a kitchen table, its water pale blue-green and perfectly clear down to a rim of orange slime. Brock knelt at the edge, feeding a glass slide tied to a long string into the scalding water, letting it sink slowly toward the colored ribbons below. Suddenly the string went taut and stuck fast, snagged on a submerged rock. "It's caught!" Brock said, tugging carefully so as not to snap it. Juniper strode over, already unstrapping her walking pole, and Mina scrambled to grab her own, both kneeling to lash the two poles together with bootlaces yanked from Juniper's boot. Hudson held the net steady over the pool's edge in case anything slipped in. Juniper reached the makeshift hook down, hunting underwater, and with a grunt levered the string free. Hand over hand, Mina hauled the slide up dripping, furred thick with warm pink jelly. Brock pressed his brass thermometer into the water. "Seventy-three degrees," he read aloud, astonished, "and still something's alive in there."
Page 3
Inside the great log lobby, the seven-storey balconies of lodgepole pine rose overhead like a wooden cathedral, and the giant stone fireplace threw out a steady warmth that Brock claimed was perfect for his purposes. He set his brass microscope right on the warm hearthstone, tilting it to catch the firelight. Behind him the red wooden sample crate sat balanced on a sloping bench near the hearth, and nobody noticed it creeping toward the edge until it tipped. Mina flung down her binoculars, sprinted across the rug and dove full-length, catching the crate hard against her chest before a single jar could smash. Hudson scrambled over with his net ready in case any jars bounced free, while Juniper steadied the bench so it wouldn't tip again. Brock, barely glancing up, waved Mina over, and together they set the crate safely on the floor. Then he bent to the eyepiece, adjusted the focus, and gasped. "They're alive," he whispered. "Hundreds of them, swimming." He stepped back so Mina could look too, her nose nearly touching the brass tube, eyes wide with wonder at the wriggling rods inside.
Page 4
The green pickup lurched to a stop as a herd of bison, each one taller than the hood and twice as wide, ambled across the cliff-walled road in a slow brown river. Brock peered through the windshield at the shaggy wall of beasts and tapped his brass thermometer against the glass. Hudson groaned but swung around to the truck bed, hauling out the wool blankets stacked knee-high. Juniper uncapped a hot-water bottle and began wrapping it snug around a jar. Mina scrambled up onto the tailgate, knees skidding on the metal, and passed jars down the line one by one, each one swaddled like a sleeping baby. Brock tucked a blanket corner tight around the last jar, checking the glass against his thermometer. When the final bison swayed off into the trees, Juniper and Mina grabbed the crate's rope handles together, bending their knees and straining their shoulders, and heaved it up into the truck bed with a solid thud. Mina slammed the tailgate shut and waved both arms as the truck rumbled away east down the canyon.
Page 5
Back in Bloomington, the little pink-flecked samples went limp in their room-temperature dishes, turning watery and grey overnight. "They're dying of cold," Brock groaned, tapping his thermometer against a dish that read a miserable twenty degrees. Something hotter was needed, fast. Anjali dragged an old glass fish tank, waist-high on its stand, onto the workbench, while Hudson hauled over a stack of bricks to prop it level. Brock clamped an aquarium heater to the tank's rim and cranked the dial, and the three of them crowded around, watching the water climb. Suddenly the tank lurched on its uneven brick base, sloshing a wave of hot water over the bench and soaking their shoes. "Grab the cord before it floods the socket!" Anjali shouted, yanking the plug free just in time. They mopped the bench with towels, resettled the bricks, and lowered the sample dishes into the warm water on a wire rack. By morning, cream-coloured colonies bloomed across the glass, fat and thriving at seventy degrees — proof the bacteria simply needed their hot spring at home.
Page 6
Lightning cracked and every light in Jordan Hall died at once. Anjali grabbed the flashlight off the bench before the second flash. "The incubator's cooling already," she said. "We move them now." Brock yanked open the boiler room door and swung onto the iron ladder, which dropped a full two storeys into darkness below the basement floor. Hudson looped a length of climbing rope into a sling and lowered the warm flasks down one by one, hand over hand, while Anjali steadied the swinging bundle from underneath. The steam pipes down in the tunnel ran as thick as a grown man's leg, hissing and ticking with heat. Brock crawled along, nestling each flask into the gap beside the hot metal. Climbing down the last few rungs, Hudson's wet sneaker slipped on the ladder and a flask shot from his fingers. Anjali lunged, catching it in a bundled towel before it struck the concrete, the glass safe against her chest. "Got it!" she gasped, laughing with relief. By dawn, cream-colored colonies still clung on, alive in the dark, humming tunnel.
Page 7
The mailroom of the American Type Culture Collection smelled of cardboard and pine sawdust, tall shelves of glass tubes rising higher than a grown man could reach. Brock cradled a thumb-sized tube labeled Thermus aquaticus YT-1, lowering it gently into a nest of sawdust inside a small wooden box no bigger than a loaf of bread. Hudson packed handfuls of sawdust around it, tamping it down with his palms. Anjali sealed the lid and set the box on a loaded mail trolley, its wheels taller than her knees, stacked with parcels. As Hudson pushed the trolley up the ramp, it lurched, tipping sideways, boxes sliding and sawdust bursting into the air like snow. Anjali lunged, arms outstretched, and snatched the small box out of the falling pile before it hit the floor. Brock steadied the trolley while Hudson scrambled to gather scattered parcels. The precious tube was carried, unharmed, to a shelf far above their heads, where a clerk filed it neatly between hundreds of others — forgotten, waiting, for seventeen quiet years.
Page 8
Every round was the same. Anjali leaned over the hip-high lab bench, squeezing a tiny glass syringe to squirt fresh enzyme into tube after tube, because the boiling water bath that split the DNA strands apart also cooked the enzyme dead each time. Thirty tubes, thirty boils, thirty refills by hand. Her wrist ached. Hudson hovered beside her, scribbling tally marks on a clipboard propped against a stack of binders. "Twenty-eight," he counted, reaching to steady the rack as Anjali's elbow, numb from repetition, caught the wooden rack and sent it skittering off the bench. Tubes clattered and bounced straight into the metal ice bucket with a splash. Brock, who had been leaning against the doorway chewing a pencil, dropped to his knees, grabbing a wad of paper towels and mopping the spreading puddle off the floor tiles. He froze mid-wipe, staring at the floating ice. "Boiling," he murmured, half to himself, "wrecks everything that isn't built for it. Except — I know a pool that boils all day long and never kills what lives in it."
Page 9
Down in the machine shop, among lathes taller than a workbench and coils of black cable looped like sleeping snakes, they built the strangest machine the building had ever seen. Anjali bolted two heating blocks together while Brock steadied a second-hand robot arm, its elbow joint salvaged from a scrapped assembly line. Hudson squirted in the precious hot-spring enzyme drop by drop, hands trembling with excitement. Then a loose bolt sprang free, bouncing and rolling under the lathe's broad metal base. Hudson dropped flat and scrambled after it on his elbows, ginger curls dragging through metal shavings, fingers finally closing around the bolt in the shadows. He wriggled back out, triumphant, and slammed it into place with a wrench. All night the machine clunked through its cycle — hot, cold, hot again — while the three of them took turns dozing on crates. By morning, a glowing ladder of DNA bands lit the gel tray, rung after rung, clear as a photograph of a staircase to nowhere.
Page 10
The wind off the bay came in hard and salty, snapping flags along the marina and rattling the wooden pier planks under their feet. A crowd of schoolchildren pressed close around the humming thermal cycler, its heating block the size of a toaster oven, chunking through its hot-cold rhythm on a trolley table waist-high to the tallest man present. Anjali lifted the big photograph of glowing DNA bands high so the children could see, but a gust tore it clean out of her hands and sent it cartwheeling toward the water. Hudson ran three long strides, leaped off the edge of a stacked crate, and swept his bent green net through the air, snagging the photograph just before it sailed over the railing. The crowd cheered. Brock steadied the wobbling cycler with both hands and pointed east, past the hills, past the bridge, toward a place none of the children could see. "Out there," he said, "is a little pool that never stops boiling." Anjali laughed, catching her breath, and took the rescued photograph back from Hudson's net.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder Science
Read Wonder Science on your phone
Wonder Science is available on Android. Get Wonder Science on Google Play.