In the scalding waters of geothermal hot springs, scientists have encountered a single-celled organism that survives at 145 degrees Celsius — a temperature that dissolves the assumptions biologists have long held about the upper limits of complex life. The so-called 'fire amoeba,' discovered through NASA-funded research, possesses a nucleus and internal structures that typically demand far more delicate conditions to function, yet it persists where most living things would cease to exist. Its discovery is less a footnote in biology than a quiet revision of the map we use to locate life in the
Meet the 'fire amoeba': A microscopic survivor breaking heat-tolerance records
Science & Space