Know about the extremophiles, organisms with the power to survive in extreme environments imaginable
Learn about hard-to-kill extremophilic organisms.
© Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Plants can reproduce asexually in a variety of ways. Learn about bulb, gemma, plantlet, and cutting forms of asexual plant reproduction.
-
© MinutePhysics (A Britannica Publishing Partner)Learn about Albert Einstein's theory of Brownian motion and how he derived the size of atoms.
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Media Editor: Lauren Sims
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.The cycle of infection results in the death of the host cell and the release of many virus particles, called virions.
-
© Massachusetts Institute of Technology (A Britannica Publishing Partner)Learn how a benign bacterial virus can be used to improve the performance of lithium-oxygen storage batteries.
-
© American Chemical Society (A Britannica Publishing Partner)Learn about carbon and how it forms the basis of life.
-
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Animation and microphotography illustrating the structural diversity of viruses.
Transcript
360 Degrees of Separation: Extremophiles. Everyone loves an underdog, and there's one strange type of organism that proves you don't have to be the biggest or the baddest to be nature's hardest. Christened extremophiles for their powers of survival in extreme places, these tiny heroes can put up with anything science and nature throw at them. Acid, radiation, extreme temperatures-- they just keep coming back for more.
And this has only made scientists more determined to defeat them. They've taken to sending these survivors into one of the most hostile environments imaginable. No, outer space. But extremophiles like this one plop down to Earth without even a mild case of travel sickness.
And this suggests a pretty sci-fi hypothesis. What if, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, two life-bearing planets collided? Could an extremophile have piggybacked its way to Earth on the debris? Could these sturdy survivors be the origins of life on our planet?
And this has only made scientists more determined to defeat them. They've taken to sending these survivors into one of the most hostile environments imaginable. No, outer space. But extremophiles like this one plop down to Earth without even a mild case of travel sickness.
And this suggests a pretty sci-fi hypothesis. What if, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, two life-bearing planets collided? Could an extremophile have piggybacked its way to Earth on the debris? Could these sturdy survivors be the origins of life on our planet?