Have you heard about the oceangoing research vessels on the high seas gulping in huge quantities of seawater to learn what DNA it contains? Did you know that many scientists are processing tons of mud and dirt to discover new species of bacteria that live in soil? It used to be that microbiologists had to grow bacteria in the lab before they could isolate the various types for study. Since many bacteria won’t thrive unless you give them the right food and conditions, it was a difficult and tedious process to discover a new type of microorganism. Not anymore.
With the advanced state of today’s DNA technology, researchers are mining vast quantities of seawater, mud, sludge, and dirt to isolate and purify the DNA that they contain. You see, DNA is not only unique to life; it is the highly specialized type of chemical that encodes instructions to form the vast collection of molecules that make up life. Each species of life from bacteria to human beings has its own unique sequences of DNA. So analysis of the DNA can lead to a determination of what species the DNA came from.
To do the study, the researchers chop up the DNA into manageable size pieces and sequence them. The sequence of the bases in DNA will let molecular biologists know what molecules the DNA is coding for. What is astounding is that so much of what is being discovered is new to science. Millions of new and unique sequences of DNA mean new and unique forms of life not previously discovered. Most of the sequences currently found come from critters that we have never known about before. New and unique sequences of DNA also represent new and unique proteins that could have useful functions that we have not even imagined yet.
But our Creator-God not only imagined each and every life-form, He made them, blessed them, and commanded them to multiply and fill the earth. As a bonus, He created all life-forms with the ability to adapt to changing conditions, the norm on our planet.