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The oldest battle on Earth, the one between bacteria and the viruses that prey on them, has been running for billions of years. A study published in PLOS Biology sent the bacteriophage T7 and its favorite target, Escherichia coli, into orbit to watch what happens when the rules change. The bacteria, meanwhile, evolved alterations in genes tied to their outer membranes and stress responses, the classic defensive playbook of a cell trying to keep viruses out. The team took the mutations that succeeded in space and built new phage variants from them.