“Boiling water is not too hot for us!” : preferred living spaces of heat-loving microbes

• Main Authors: Elleuche, Skander, Schröder, Carola, Stahlberg, Nadine, Antranikian, Garabed
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
• Subjects: microorganisms; hot springs; geysers; enzymes; 570: Biowissenschaften; Biologie; North Pole
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11420/13548; https://doi.org/10.15480/882.4578

Do you like to stay at the beach on a hot summer day? Sun bathing, chilling, and playing beach games? If it gets too hot, you can quickly cool off in the lukewarm ocean. Can you believe that there are living organisms on our planet that would still freeze on the hottest day of the year? These tiny creatures are called heat-loving microbes, and they do not grow at temperatures lower than 50°C, but they feel most comfortable in boiling water near volcanoes at the bottom of the ocean or in hot springs. Can you imagine that most of these hot places are not located in deserts, but on volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean and near the North Pole? And do you have an idea about the importance of such microbes for use in industry and in scientific laboratories?