For the last entry in our Black History Month series, we’re discussing Emmett Chappelle, the biochemist hired by NASA to develop tests and methods to identify microbial life on the surface of Mars. Of course, life has never been found on the red planet, but like many other innovations originally developed for space, Chappelle’s inventions have found new purpose here on Earth. One of his most notable discoveries was luciferase, the enzyme found in fireflies that glows when it reacts with the protein luciferin in the presence of ATP—the currency of life. Because luciferase only reacts with luciferin when there…
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