The Goo In Your Home Could Help Address Climate Change

Jun 28, 2025

16:38 minutes

We live in a world filled with microbes—they’re inside our bodies, in soil, in deep sea hydrothermal vents, and in your window AC unit. Some microbiologists are hopeful that finding more of these tiny organisms could help us address the climate crisis. Joining Host Flora Lichtman to talk about how are microbiologists James Henriksen and Lisa Stein.

You can also contribute directly to The Extremophile Campaign: In Your Home community science project.

Dr. James Henriksen, environmental microbiologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Dr. Lisa Stein, climate change microbiologist at the University of Alberta in Canada.

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Kathleen Davis is a producer and fill-in host at Science Friday, which means she spends her weeks researching, writing, editing, and sometimes talking into a microphone. She’s always eager to talk about freshwater lakes and Coney Island diners.

Flora Lichtman is a host of Science Friday. In a previous life, she lived on a research ship where apertivi were served on the top deck, hoisted there via pulley by the ship’s chef.

Wine grapes have distinctive microbial patterns based on growing conditions, environmental features, and the fruit itself.

Deep in the Peruvian Amazon, biochemist Rosa Vásquez Espinoza investigates the medicinal properties of microbes flowing in a sacred boiling river.