A trio of Nevada professors is working with NASA to investigate what drives life deep underground, hoping to create a better understanding of how ecosystems can thrive miles beneath the surface of Earth— and potentially on other planets.

The Nevada team, which will include researchers from the Desert Research Institute, the University of Nevada, Reno, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will collect samples from underground sites in Nevada and the southwest to study how microbial communities use radiation byproducts to survive.

The cute acrobats are fun to watch—that is, until they dig through your flower beds, damage your tree trunks, or nest in your attic. Here's what you can do to get rid of squirrels on your property without harming them.

In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time.

Take a deep breath. A flow of air has rushed into your lungs, where the oxygen moves into your bloodstream, fueling metabolic fires in cells throughout your body. You, being an aerobic organism, use oxygen as the cellular spark that frees molecular energy from the food you eat. But not all organisms on the planet live or breathe this way. Instead of using oxygen to harvest energy, many single-celled life-forms that live in environments far from oxygen’s reach, such as deep-sea hydrothermal vents or stygian crevices in the soil, wield other elements to respire and unlock energy.

Once a house fire starts, it can grow quickly and without restraint, becoming a major fire in under three minutes. House fires are a common occurrence: around 944 house fires occur every day.