NPCA • April 6, 2021
National parks aren’t just fun places to vacation — they are also living laboratories for scientific research. In some cases, chance discoveries can have long-term benefits, as was the case more than five decades ago in one of the nation’s most famous parks. A bacterial discovery at Yellowstone 55 years ago has been key to the development of PCR testing, the most reliable way to know whether someone has COVID-19.