Can anything live in boiling water or deep ice?

A bubbling saucepan looks nothing like a place to live. Neither does ice that stays frozen year after year. Can anything live in boiling water or deep ice?

Some living things are tiny. They are microbes, living things too small for your eyes to see without special tools.

Deep in the ocean, some microbes live in water hotter than a boiling saucepan. The weight of the ocean above squeezes the water and stops it from bubbling. That lets the water stay liquid even in such great heat.

These heat-loving microbes have tough working parts that keep doing their jobs when ordinary living things cannot. That protection lets them grow in their hot, watery homes.

Deep ice offers a different puzzle. Microbes need liquid water to take in food and grow, but ice is solid. Can you guess where a microbe might find liquid water inside ice?

Some ice holds tiny pockets of salty water between its frozen pieces. The salt helps that water stay liquid, even when the fresh water around it freezes. Those pockets offer a hidden watery home.

Some microbes use the liquid in those pockets to take in food. In the cold, they do their living and growing extremely slowly. Life there can move at a much quieter pace than life in a warm pond.

Other microbes survive freezing by stopping their growth. They protect their tiny parts and wait, rather like seeds waiting for spring.

If the ice melts and conditions suit them, some of those waiting microbes can grow again. The liquid water lets them take in food once more. Their long pause can come to an end.

Microbes. Yes, tiny microbes can live in boiling-hot water and deep ice, because their tough parts keep working and they use hidden pockets of liquid water.

As you settle down tonight, remember the tiny microbes cozy in their surprising homes.