The River That Brought the Dead Sea Back to Life

In 2011, researchers from Ben Gurion University discovered something remarkable along the shores of the Dead Sea. Fresh water springs were bubbling up from beneath the hypersaline floor, and around each spring, thriving colonies of microorganisms had formed — life where nothing was supposed to survive. The Dead Sea, ten times saltier than the ocean, a place whose very name declares the absence of life, was being quietly reclaimed by fresh water seeping up from deep underground.…