is the dawning of the age of Aquaticus, age of Aquaticus.

Wait, isn't it supposed to be Age of Aquarius?

Well, our friends at Radio Lab recently aired an episode called

the Age of Aquaticus, in which they tell the story of a relatively overlooked scientific

discovery that paved the way for huge advancements in biotechnology. Radio Lab hosts Latif

Nasser joins us now to talk about thermos Aquaticus and how small but significant

discoveries like it in the modern day are being threatened by the political winds of today.

Hey, Latif, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me, as always, Brian.

So what is Thermos Aquaticus and who was that we heard in the intro singing about it?

So the guy who was singing about it is a scientist I've grown very fond of, and he has a great name.

His name is Hudson Freeze, so he goes by Mr. Freeze or Dr. Freeze. He's heard all the jokes.

But anyway, starting when he was an undergrad in the 1960s, he was part of the team that discovered this bacterium

thermos aquaticus. And thermos aquaticus, it's also called tack for short. It's not just

any bacterium. It's an extremophile bacterium, which means that it loves

extreme environments, in this case, heat. So this bacterium loves to live where it's really hot,

like almost boiling water hot. Hot water worms. Yeah, basically, they're not really worms. We

call them worms in the episode, but they're bacteria.

Yeah.

All right.

So Hudson Freeze discovers thermos aquaticus.

What did this discovery say about the world we live in?

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