Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

Studying life at the extremes

Researchers have invented methods to study microbes that thrive in the world’s most inhospitable environments.
  1. Amber Dance

    1. Amber Dance is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, California.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

View over a larger crater with patches of burning fire and a figure in a silver suit and helmet suspended on a zip line overhead

Researchers are looking for microbes in soil samples from this flaming gas crater in Turkmenistan, known as the Door to Hell. Credit: Stefan Green/XMP

Microbes cling to life in some of Earth’s most extreme environments, from toxic hot springs to high-altitude deserts. These ‘extremophiles’ include organisms that can survive near-boiling heat or near-freezing cold, high pressure or high salt, as well as environments steeped in acids, alkalis, metals or radioactivity.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 587, 165-166 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03055-0

References

  1. Tighe, S. et al. J. Biomol. Tech. 28, 31–39 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Flusberg, B. A. et al. Nature Methods 7, 461–465 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Riley, L. A. et al. J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 46, 1435–1443 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Walker, J. E. et al. Metab. Eng. Commun. 10, e00116 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Pulschen, A. A. et al. Curr. Biol. 30, 2852–2859 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Eun, Y.-J. et al. Nature Microbiol. 3, 148–154 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Turkowyd, B. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.27.222935 (2020).

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links