The Fierce and Fiery Microbe ||NAME: Pyrococcus furiosus IMAGE
CREDITS: Henry Aldrich, email@example.com Click image to
download large 640 x 480 JPEG image (approximate download times:
28.8 k = 40 sec; T1 = 11 sec.) How would you like to swim in
boiling water? Although you and all plants and animals would
quickly die in such hot water, the microbe Pyrococcus furiosus
thrives in boiling water. This bacterium not only lives at hot
temperatures, but it freezes to death at temperatures below 70
degrees Celsius. Microbes that thrive in boiling hot water are
called "hyperthermophiles". Not only do these exotic microbes
live in boiling water, they do not breathe oxygen. In fact,
oxygen kills them. Instead of oxygen, these fiery microbes
breathe sulfur and exhale the stuff that gives rotten-eggs their
smell: hydrogen sulfide. Since these microbes like boiling hot
water with no oxygen, they live in the hot water bubbling from
undersea hot vents. These bacteria are classified as members of
the Archeae, one of two major