Top 05 Most Extreme Life Forms
That's because this fantastic-looking tube worm gets 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 water pressure that would easily crush you or me to death in seconds.
4. Deinococcus radiodurans
This little bacterium is little known to the general public, but is of great interest to the scientific community, which may explain why its unique name can only be uttered by people who value biological taxonomy over trivialities like familiarity or hygiene. Although it is known for several interesting properties, including the ability to withstand heat and acids, it is named for its most amazing ability. It can withstand doses of radiation that would kill almost anything on the planet. For comparison, let's say that a person will die after absorbing 10 Gray of radiation. D. radiodurans was dosed with up to 15,000 Gray and passed without deletion. Its ability to withstand radiation and repair its own DNA is being explored for medical use as well as for use as a computer storage medium.
3. Water bear
A water bear, also called a tardigrade, is my candidate for the toughest SOB you'll ever lay eyes on since the Bruce Willis award. There are more than a thousand species of these small eight-legged animals and they live all over the Earth. Some sadistic sleuthing and prodding by scientists has revealed that these little action heroes can survive temperatures of 303 degrees Fahrenheit on the top (remember, water boils at 212 degrees) and only a few degrees on the bottom. absolute zero. They can withstand pressures ranging from 6,000 atmospheres to the vacuum of space, unheard of even in the deepest oceans. They have a resistance to radiation unmatched in the animal kingdom, allowing them to survive radiation doses more than a thousand times the intensity needed to kill a human (unless, of course, you're the aforementioned Bruce Willis). And they can be completely dehydrated and come back to life after decades of being little mummies. It is not surprising that these people have existed for about 500 million years.
2. Archaea
The small bacteria-like organisms classified as archaea were only classified in the 1950s, and then they were considered a relatively rare group of microorganisms that can be found in extremes of temperature, acidity, salinity, or other unfavorable conditions. Recently, using new biochemical technologies, scientists have been able to show that not only are they a completely separate life form from the other kingdoms on Earth, but that they thrive in every environment on the planet. In fact, archaea can be found even deep in the planet's crust, wherever the earth is porous enough that anything can get in there. They are so common, in fact, that they are now estimated to make up one-fifth of the mass of life on Earth, and are a fundamental and indispensable part of our ecosystem. Their strange qualities and the genetic differences between Archaea and other forms of life on Earth have led some scientists to speculate that they may be the common ancestor of all life on our planet. Others even go so far as to theorize that they are not native to Earth, but somehow transported here from another planet.
1. Humanity
You should have known we were going to make a list. Humans, or Homo sapiens, exist today in only one species, a single variety. We probably wiped out the various types and species of humanity that existed up to ten thousand years ago. Of all the different species on the planet, none have the ability to change the environment to suit their needs. While other species used evolution to change and respond to changing conditions, humanity decided it had had enough of the whole evolutionary game and started forcing the environment to change. We burn forests to grow food, spread transportation networks across the planet, and even change the atmosphere (though not on purpose). Although we are a relatively large species with large nutritional requirements, we are currently increasing our population at rates previously reserved for disease cultures. We're not all bad, and I believe we'll figure out how to get out of this nose-dive, but so far it seems like we're the most likely chosen to cause Armageddon.
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