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Mystery #1Tier 2microbes extreme heat

How can tiny living things survive in water hot enough to cook an egg?

Deep in some volcanic springs, the water bubbles away close to boiling, more than hot enough to cook an egg. Drop most living things into it and they would not last a moment. Yet peer through a microscope and that scalding water is crowded with tiny life, thriving. How can anything survive being almost boiled alive?

Steam drifting over the vivid orange microbial mats surrounding a Yellowstone hot spring, with forest beyond.
Photo: Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

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