The Tasmanian devil, the spaniel-size marsupial found on the Australian island of Tasmania, has been hurtling toward extinction in recent years, the victim of a bizarre and mysterious facial cancer that spreads like a plague.

Now Australian scientists say they have discovered how the cancer originated. The finding, being reported Friday in the journal Science, sheds light on how cancer cells can sometimes liberate themselves from the hosts where they first emerged. On a more practical level, it also opens the door to devising vaccines that could save the Tasmanian devils.

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If you want to appreciate the diversity of life on earth, you will need a microscope.

There are about 5,400 species of mammals on the planet, but just a spoonful of soil may contain twice as many species of microbes. They can dwell in habitats where so-called higher life forms like us would quickly die, including acid-drenched mines and Antarctic deserts. By one rough estimate, there may be, all told, 150 million species of microbes.

“Microbes represent the vast majority of organisms on earth,” said Hans-Peter Klenk, a microbiologist for the German Collection of Micro-organisms and Cell Cultures, a government microbiology research center.

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