Scientists are looking for CO2-gobbling microbes in extreme environments — like your home

The spotlight

There I was: teetering on the top of a ladder with my headlamp and a sampling vial, ready to brave the bats, cockroaches, and spiders in the attic of my family’s Florida home, in search of an even smaller — and infinitely more mysterious — lifeform. I knew up here, somewhere in the dusty bowels of our home, was a condensation line for the heating and cooling system. And where there’s moisture, there’s bacteria. Could this innocuous household appliance yield a tiny biological...