Word of the Day

: April 1, 2009

extremophile

noun ik-STREE-muh-fyle

What It Means

: an organism that lives under extreme environmental conditions (as in a hot spring or ice cap)

extremophile in Context

"Cold-loving extremophiles could show us what kinds of creatures might live ... in parts of the solar system previously thought uninhabitable." (Michael Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, Time Magazine, July 2002)

Did You Know?

No, an extremophile is not an enthusiast of extreme sports (though "-phile" does mean "one who loves or has an affinity for"). Rather, extremophiles are microbes that thrive in environments once considered uninhabitable, from places with high levels of toxicity and radiation to boiling-hot deep-sea volcanoes to Antarctic ice sheets. Scientists have even created a new biological domain to classify some of these microbes: Archaea (from Greek "archaios," meaning "ancient"). These extremophiles may have a lot in common with the first organisms to appear on earth billions of years ago. If so, they can give us insight into how life on our planet may have arisen. They are also being studied to learn about possible life forms on other planets, where conditions are extreme compared to conditions on Earth.