{"id":236398,"date":"2026-05-02T22:10:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T03:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/mysterious-black-goo-discovered-aboard-ship-reveals-species-unknown-to-science"},"modified":"2026-05-02T22:10:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T03:10:54","slug":"mysterious-black-goo-discovered-aboard-ship-reveals-species-unknown-to-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/mysterious-black-goo-discovered-aboard-ship-reveals-species-unknown-to-science","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious black goo discovered aboard ship reveals species unknown to science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/mysterious-black-goo-discovered-aboard-ship-reveals-species-unknown-to-science.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest surprise was that the ship goo had life in it at all,\u201d researcher Cody Sheik, who discovered the substance, said in a <a data-yga=\"{'yLinkElement':'link','yLinkElementType':'article_link'}\" href=\"https:\/\/news.d.umn.edu\/articles\/ship-goo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm: link;elmt: article_link;slk:press release;itc:0;sec: content-canvas\" class=\"\" data-rapid_p=\"41\" data-v9y=\"1\">press release<\/a>. \u201cWe thought we\u2019d find nothing. But surprisingly, we found DNA, and it wasn\u2019t too destroyed, nor was the biomass too low.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After further analysis, the team reconstructed 20 genomes from the sample. Some appear to represent entirely new branches of life, including what could be a previously unknown order of archaea and even a new bacterial phylum.<\/p>\n<p>Inside the goo, scientists found microbes that thrive in semi-warm environments with no oxygen \u2014 conditions that closely match those inside the ship\u2019s mechanical systems. Researchers believe the organisms may have hitchhiked on oil used to grease the rudder, remaining dormant until conditions allowed them to grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe biggest surprise was that the ship goo had life in it at all,\u201d researcher Cody Sheik, who discovered the substance, said in a press release. \u201cWe thought we\u2019d find nothing. But surprisingly, we found DNA, and it wasn\u2019t too destroyed, nor was the biomass too low.\u201d After further analysis, the team reconstructed 20 genomes [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}