SPACE IS HARD, BUT SO IS CLEANLINESS: ‘Stop and re-check everything’: Scientists discover 26 new bacterial species in NASA’s cleanrooms. “Earlier this year, scientists identified more than two dozen previously unknown bacterial species lurking in the Kennedy Space Center cleanrooms in Florida, where NASA assembled its Phoenix Mars Lander in 2007. The discovery showed that despite constant scrubbing, harsh cleaning chemicals and extreme nutrient scarcity, some microbes evolved a suite of genetic tricks that allowed them to persist in these punishing environments.”