Hey, Pop Mech readers! Welcome to the first episode of The Astounding Pop Mech Show, our weekly video podcast series where we unpack the weirdest, wildest breakthroughs and try to answer the biggest questions in science, tech, and human ingenuity—one mind-blowing discovery at a time. In this episode, hosts Andrew Daniels and John Gilpatrick dive deep into the mysterious origins of all life on Earth—and the ancient microbe that might be our great-great-great (times a billion) grandparent .