When you make beer, you may think you're the boss of your ingredients. But have you stopped to think about how seemingly innocent Yeast may have the upper hand over humans, at least when it comes to world domination (are you paying attention, gamers)? To investigate Yeast's grand strategy for taking over Mother Earth, we set aside our videogame controllers and spoke with Neva Parker, head of laboratory operations at White Labs in San Diego. What we discovered pulled the rug out from under our malt-dusted brewing boots.Here's why you might be underestimating the contents of that seemly humble smack pack or vial. Yeast is so much more than your beer bitch. Hold on tight for some insane information about how Yeast is way-hay ahead of us in the game of world domination.Yeah, that's right. Scientists have found the genetic material of Yeast cells dating back to about two billion years, much earlier than even old-school videogame systems like Atari or Nintendo. And Yeast has been evolving the entire time, getting better and stronger. The modern human race has been around for about 200,000 years. You do the math. What's more, Yeast is aided not only by evolution but by passionate men and women dressed in lab coats " aka, scientists " who claim to be helping us brew better beer. Neva shares the facts of Yeast's etymology: The French word for yeast, levure, is traced to the Latin word, levare, used for dough and yeast, to describe an organism that is able to anaerobically release carbon dioxide during the baking process.It's in the air. It's on our plants and trees. It's even on the insects inside our homes. And it's in our beer. Don't tell the kids, but Yeast is living in our bodies, right now, making the most of an awesome stealth characteristic. If you squirm when a parasite worms its way out of the protagonist's stomach at the movies, don't think too hard about what Yeast is doing in your belly. Brewing Yeast, however, is a treasure that's a bit more difficult to find because it wants a good source of sugar or carbon. The ground zero for Brewing Yeast is rotting fruit or wet grains, where it feasts on exposed sugars. Yeast has changed the fields of biology and biochemistry with the discovery of enzymes, explains Neva, and this led to many exciting advances but also to the making of TNT and morphine/THC.You may think a scientist can distinguish WLP001 California Ale Yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, from WLP830 German Lager Yeast, Saccharomyces pastorianus, by looking under a microscope. Nope. In almost all cases, one Yeast strain looks like another. Scientists and the rest of us must rely mostly on genetics and behaviors to tell one strain from another. Meanwhile, it's a piece of cake to identify one human from another " or even the undead in your average videogame. So prepare for a world-survival situation using the only option you have: watch and react, and thank God for your lightning fast gaming skills. The name Saccharomyces' comes from a Greek word meaning sugar fungus', says Neva. The root for cerevisiae' originated from the Roman God of the crops, Ceres.Any gamer will tell you Yeast's spawn time is incredibly low. Like an army of cockroaches, Yeast cells never seem to run out of replacement troops. While individual Yeast cells don't live long, they reproduce in such numbers that they will live through any freaking zombie apocalypse. On the other hand, according to Time magazine, the world's population may actually be declining. Yeast is also terrifyingly adaptive; it has learned how to protect itself by creating an alcoholic environment that is toxic to its enemies. The alcoholic environment created by humans are . . . bars.Yeast can't walk around like we do, so it resorts to dirty tactics to spread itself around with the help of a battalion of insects. Scientists theorize that Yeast produces esters to beguile insects and birds, who get drunk with bliss over Yeast's fruity, floral aroma. Then they fly away and unwittingly spread Yeast all around the world. How do our aircraft carriers compete with that? Yeast is so interesting to scientists that, says Neva, it is the first genome to ever be sequenced.So, where does that leave us vs. Yeast in the game of world domination? We may have the razor-sharp reflexes to annihilate the infected undead, but Yeast's insane skills make it the ultimate skull-crushing survivor. Our only hope: creativity and imagination. Will it be enough?//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/ t=_self