Top 10 Extreme Forms of Life

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5. Pompeii Worm



Unless you are a very lucky marine biologist, you are unlikely to ever see Alvinella pompejana, or the Pompeii worm, in person. That’s because this fanciful-looking tube-worm lives its life stuck around volcanic hydrothermal vents in deep ocean trenches. These little worms live in an environment that is incredibly hostile to life, and that goes beyond the water pressure that would easily crush you or me to death in seconds. Their lower end is usually resting (within their tubes) in water up to 176 degrees Fahrenheit, while their head end is often in water at a far more amenable 72 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes them the second most heat-tolerant of all complex animals. For the most heat tolerant, see number 3 on this list.

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4. Deinococcus radiodurans



This tiny bacterium is little known to the general public, but is of great interest to the scientific community, which might explain why it’s sole name is pronounceable only by people who prefer biological taxonomy to inconsequential things like dating or hygiene. Although it is known for several interesting properties, including the ability to withstand heat and exposure to acids, it is named for its most astounding ability. It can survive doses of radiation that would **** virtually anything else on the planet. For comparison, a human will die after absorbing 10 Grays of radiation. D. radiodurans has been dosed with up to 15,000 Grays, and come through without being wiped out. Its ability to withstand radiation and repair its own DNA is being researched for use in medicine as well as use as a computer storage medium.

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3. Water Bear



The water bear, also called a tardigrade, is my nominee for the Toughest SOB You’ll Ever Lay Eyes On After Bruce Willis award. There are over a thousand species of this little eight-legged animal, and they have been found living literally everywhere on Earth. Some sadistic poking and prodding by scientists has revealed that these little action heroes can survive at temperatures of 303 degrees Fahrenheit at the top end (remember that water boils at 212 degrees), and at the lower end, have survived at only a few degrees above absolute zero. They can withstand pressures ranging from 6,000 atmospheres, which is not even found in the deepest oceans, to the vacuum of outer space. They have shown resistance to radiation that is unparalleled in the animal kingdom, allowing them to survive doses of radiation over a thousand times the intensity that it takes to **** a human (unless, of course, you are the previously-mentioned Bruce Willis). And they can be completely dehydrated and then come back to life after decades of being tiny mummies. It’s little wonder that these guys have been about for around 500 million years.

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2. Archaea



The tiny bacteria-like organisms classified as archaea were only classified in the 1950′s, and then they were considered to be a group of relatively uncommon microorganisms that could be found in areas of extreme temperatures, acidity, salinity, or other unpleasant conditions. More recently, scientists have been able to use new biochemical technologies to show that, not only are they a totally separate form of life from the other kingdoms on Earth, but that they actually thrive in every environment on the planet. In fact, archaea can be found even down deep into the planet’s crust, everywhere that the ground is porous enough to allow anything to get there. They are so common, in fact, that they are now estimated to make up as much as one fifth of the mass of life on the Earth, and are a major and indispensable part of our ecosystem. Their strange qualities and the genetic differences between Archaea and the other forms of Earth life have caused some scientists to suggest that they may be the common ancestor of every living thing on our planet. Others go even further, with the theory that they aren’t even native to Earth, but were somehow transported here from another planet.

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1. Mankind



You had to know that we would make the list. Humans, or Homo sapiens, exists today in only a single species with a single variety. Presumably, we ****ed off the various other varieties and species of humanity that existed up to as little as ten thousand years ago. Of all the different species on the planet, not one has a more powerful ability to change its environment to adapt it to its needs. While other species use evolution to change and meet changing conditions, humanity decided that it had had enough of the whole evolution game, and started forcing the environment to change. We burn down forests to plant food, spread transportation networks across the entire planet, and even alter the atmosphere itself (although that’s not so much on purpose). Although we are a relatively large species with large food requirements, we are currently increasing our population at a rate formerly reserved for disease cultures. We’re not all bad, and I believe that we’ll figure out how to pull out of this nose-dive, but for now it looks like we’ve been voted Most Likely to Cause Armageddon.