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LiveScience
LiveScience
Hannah Osborne

Invisible DNA lurks everywhere in the environment — and we're on the verge of decoding its secrets

A collage with an illustration of DNA.

There's a spa floating in the middle of Lake Erie. It has a sauna, a steam room and even a cubicle filled with snow. Upstairs, there are luxury lounges, a huge library, a curated art collection by notable artists, and a panoramic lecture theater with floor-to-ceiling windows. Passengers are busy dining, surrounded by sommeliers, in fine restaurants.

One deck below, there's a pristine, state-of-the-art laboratory full of high-tech equipment, and two multimillion-dollar submersibles can take passengers down 1,000 feet (300 meters). A team of scientists is sifting through water samples and analyzing them in real time, looking at the genetic fingerprints of plankton as it floats through the water.

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