Now, this is thinking outside the box. Dr. Adam Driks (Loyola, Illinois) is a microbiologist who has been studying spores for a while. A spore is a protective shell (actually, concentric shells) that some microbes form to keep themselves preserved during periods of environmental stress. It was originally thought to be like a walnut shell protecting the valuable components within. But, Driks has been studying Bacillus spores and found that when the relative humidity changes, so does the spore itself.