"Al" wrote in message
...
This little blurb arrived in one of my astronomy newsletters called "The
Universe Today" (http://www.universetoday.com/)
and I thought it might be interesting to the flaskers and autoclavers in
this newsgroup:

These Microbes Can Take the Heat
Aug 18, 2003 - Microbes taken from a deep sea vent at the bottom of the
Pacific Ocean can survive in an environment that would kill anything else
on
Earth - they live, and thrive, in water that is 130 degrees Celsius. The
scientists who discovered the microbes, called Strain 121, put the
creature
in an autoclave, which is designed to kill all bacteria; not only did it
survive, but it kept on multiplying in the high heat. The discovery helps
scientists develop new theories of how life could have originated on an
early Earth that was much hotter than it is today.

While interesting for anyone with an interest in living things, it is
probably not of practical import tomost of us. After all, this is a newly
discovered species, as are related species, found in suboceanic vents. As
they thrive in temperatures well in excess of 100 degrees Celcius, it is
unlikely that their natural distribution extends any further than a few tens
of metres from the vents on which they depend. The water at the bottom of
the ocean varies from about 0 up to 4 degrees Celcius (depending on which
ocean), and so there is likely to be a steep temperature gradient from
outrageously hot near the vent to bitterly cold as one moves away from the
vents. It is therefore highly unlikely to be present in any terrestrial
ecosystem we can inhabit, and therefore unlikely to be a contaminant to be
of concern to flaskers and autoclavers. Another relevant consideration is
that their energy metabolism depends on the highly reduced water coming from
the vents (for additional information, do a search on chemosynthesis,
contrasted with photosynthesis), and they use iron where most living things
use oxygen when metabolizing organic material. This means that our
oxidizing, oxygen rich environment is likely to be highly toxic to it.

Interesting stuff though.

Cheers,

Ted