Taumoeba

Item from Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The natural predator of the thing eating the Sun — an amoeba that envelops and kills Astrophage, found on a planet twelve light-years from the problem it needed to solve.

Also known as: Taumoeba, Taumoeba-82.5, The Cure

What They Know

• Natural predator of Astrophage — envelops and kills Astrophage cells, keeping Tau Ceti's population balanced
• Found on Adrian (Tau Ceti e) in the planet's CO2-rich atmosphere
• Natural strain is killed by nitrogen — cannot survive on Venus or Threeworld without modification
• Strain 82.5: nitrogen-resistant variant bred through 82.5 rounds of selective evolution by Grace and Rocky
• Critical flaw: engineered strain 82.5 can penetrate xenonite (natural strain cannot), threatening Rocky's ship
• Deployment to Venus/Threeworld would break the Astrophage breeding cycle and save both suns

Connections

• preys_on — astrophage
• found_on — adrian
• bred_by — grace
• bred_by — rocky
• threatens — blip_a

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