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The creatures are known as "extremophiles," and they earn the name: They live in toxic Superfund cleanup sites, boiling deep-sea rift vents, volcanic craters and polar glaciers -- some of the planet's harshest environments.
These single-celled creatures owe their hardiness to genes, and that has drawn the attention of a few biotech companies. The companies train the genes to mass-produce industrial-strength enzymes for such products as better detergents, cleaner chemicals and more-effective DNA fingerprints.
Such "bio-prospecting" efforts have huge potential for good. They just might make hazardous waste cleanup more affordable, reduce pollution and make better medicines if the microbes' genetic durability can be exploited and controlled.
But tough questions are being raised as well -- about the morality of allowing private companies to patent and profit from Mother Nature. [continued]
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,63993,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_7
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