The bacterium is a thermophile and is widely distributed in soil, hot springs, ocean sediment, and is a cause of spoilage in food products.

Fluorescent-tagged strains, known as rapid-read BIs,[3] are becoming more common to verify sterilization, since the visible fluorescence appears in about one-tenth the time needed for pH-indicator color change and an inexpensive light sensor can detect the growing colonies.

In 2013, a thermostable group II intron reverse transcriptase (TGIRT), GsI-IIC-MRF, from G. stearothermophilus was found to retain activity up to 70 °C and to exhibit high processivity and a low error rate.

[7] These properties make this enzyme useful for reverse transcribing long and/or highly structured RNA molecules.

A method for determining RNA secondary structure, DMS-MaPseq, uses this enzyme because it converts normal RNA to DNA accurately but introduces mutations at unpaired bases that have been methylated by dimethyl sulfate, and the mutations can be identified via sequencing.