Pyrococcus Furiosus Makes Its Genetic Contribution

Pyrococcus Furiosus or P. As it likes to be known by its friends, it being used to develop Space-tolerant plants.
For those of you who don't know, P. Is a little microbe that likes to live where it's really hot--like in a volcanic vent at the bottom of the ocean, or where it's really cold, like a glacier. Just one creature in the class of organisms scientists call extremophiles, because of their ability to survive in extreme environments.
Researchers at North Carolina State University, in their never-ending quest to find uses for tobacco other than smoking, are "transferring beneficial characteristics" from the little beastie to tobacco and mustard weed. The hope is that the plants will become more resilient and better able to survive in extreme environments on earth. But also to see if we can adapt them to grow places off Earth--like Mars, where the gravity, atmosphere and temperature are toxic.
If successful the effort could change everything about living in these places.
Farming on Mars (or anywhere conceivably) would become an industry of the future, rather than a somewhat neglected relic from the distant past.