In 2015, Jesus Rivera filmed a very unusual science experiment for posterity. On the asphalt of a sun-soaked parking lot, he placed a mottled black beetle on a pillow of dirt and had a colleague run it over with a Toyota Camry. Twice. Just about any other bug would have died. This one, a species called Phloeodes diabolicus, did not. … “That would jellify a human,” said David Kisailus, an engineer at the University of California, Irvine, who mentored Dr. Rivera’s work. [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries.

Some universities study colonization in space, like the University of California, Irvine. Engineers at the University of California, Irvine said microbes could help colonize the Moon and Mars.