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"Extreme" depends on who is asking. Extremophiles are organisms that thrive in environments that seem impossible to us — the high pressure and heat around hydrothermal vents, for example — and they are extreme only from a human point of view.
The Sully Vent in the Main Endeavour Vent Field, in the northeast Pacific. Bacteria often form on the rocks near hydrothermal vents, and a bed of tube worms covers the base of this black smoker. Credit: NOAA.
Mapping the limits of life
Because extremophiles live under high pressure and temperature, they show us the range of conditions in which life is possible. Some go further than that. Oxygen is a necessity for life as we know it, yet some organisms flourish where there is no oxygen at all.
Enzymes built for the extremes
Extremophiles can function in these forbidding places thanks to unique enzymes, called extremozymes. Those enzymes hold great promise: they could lead to new genetically based medicines and to new industrial chemicals and processes.
Sources
Based on "What is an extremophile?" from NOAA's National Ocean Service, a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licenza: CC0 1.0 (pubblico dominio) · Tratto da oceanservice.noaa.gov
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