MICROBES have been found flourishing in the saltiest earthly environment yet investigated for life. The find boosts claims that extraterrestrial life might thrive in equally salty niches on other planets and moons.
The salt-loving microbes were discovered in a Mediterranean sea-floor basin near the Greek island of Crete. “We expected it to be sterile,” says team leader Paul van der Wielen of Kiwa Water Research, a research institute in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. “But the diversity is quite high, and most of the microbes identified are new species.”
Called the Discovery Basin, the zone 3.5 kilometres under the ocean contains salt…
