A microbe that thrives in boiling water and "breathes" iron has stretched the limits of where scientists believed life could exist, according to a report published on Thursday. The bacteria-like organism lives in a hellish undersea environment where water boils out from underwater vents called black smokers. There is no light, the pressure of the water would instantly crush anything living on land and the water is loaded with toxic chemicals. The discovery suggests that life could exist on planets very different from Earth. It also suggests that life did not always evolve in the ways biology teaches -- in warm, soupy waters bathed in sunlight on the planet's surface. Kazem Kashefi and Derek Lovley of the University of Massachusetts tested a sample of water collected about 200 miles off Puget Sound and nearly a mile and a half below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The water was collected by a University of Washington team looking for archaea, bacteria-like organisms that live in extreme environments. The area they explored can be reached only by remotely operated submarines. Known as the Juan de Fuca Ridge, it is marked by black smokers that rise the equivalent of four stories. Life has been found around the black smokers, teetering in the balance between frigid and boiling waters and often using the sulfur in the water as fuel.
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