Mineralogy at the extremes

Living at extremes

The Biochemist — February 2005. © 2005 Biochemical Society 12 of metres thick. The majority of the ice in the Southern Ocean lasts only less than 1 year, and the average Antarctic sea ice thickness is 1 m. In contrast, in the Arctic Ocean sea ice can last several years and the average thickness is generally 2 m. When ice forms from freshwater, the result is a hard brittle solid with the primary...

Burns at the extremes of age.

Breathe: respiration at the extremes of age.

The March issue of Breathe focuses on respiration at the extremes of age http://ow.ly/YGR1I.

Neurons at the extremes of cell biology

Neurons are the pedestals of human consciousness, yet from a cell biological view they are little more than specialized epithelia. Indeed, as highlighted in the “Neuronal Development and Degeneration” Minisymposium, neurons inhabit conventional cell biology at an extreme: in their diversity of cell types, the specificity of their cell–cell junctions and cell–cell signaling, their degree of asym...

Eukaryotic diversity at pH extremes

Extremely acidic (pH < 3) and extremely alkaline (pH > 9) environments support a diversity of single-cell and to a lesser extent, multicellular eukaryotic life. This study compared alpha and beta diversity in eukaryotic communities from seven diverse aquatic environments with pH values ranging from 2 to 11 using massively-parallel pyrotag sequencing targeting the V9 hypervariable region of the ...