New Cousins Samples taken from China's Tiangong space station contained a new, mysterious microbe that doesn't exist on Earth, a recent paper published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology reveals. The microbe, named Niallia tiangongensis — indeed, the bacteria was fittingly named after the space station — is a never-before-seen strain of an earthborne bacteria specially adapted to off-planet life. According to the research, which was conducted by a team of scientists from the Shenzhou Space Biotechnology Group and the Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, the new microbe is evolved to withstand oxidative stress and heal […]