by Me­chas — Mi­crobes never cease to sur­prise, as should be ev­i­dent to long-time STC read­ers. Now we are pre­sented with a novel mech­a­nism that al­lows ar­chaea to ex­pand their gene con­tent and meta­bolic ca­pac­ity. This un­fore­seen dis­cov­ery also il­lus­trates the im­por­tance not only of hav­ing the right tools (and fund­ing) but also of be­ing pre­pared to find the un­ex­pected.