[I]n many ways, rocks at the bottom of the deep sea, buried under a mile of Earth’s crust, or covered in bird crap on aren’t inanimate objects at all… - James Nestor

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[I]n many ways, rocks at the bottom of the deep sea, buried under a mile of Earth’s crust, or covered in bird crap on aren’t inanimate objects at all. They are undulating, "breathing" systems crammed with organisms so tiny and metabolizing so slowly that nobody ever noticed.
Most researchers never bothered. Seeking out extreme life requires traveling to some of Earth’s most far-flung and miserable environments. Only a handful of microbiologists and geologists have had the will, fortitude, and resources to endure weeks in the triple-digit heat within African mines, or months in the frozen expanses of Antarctica, or years sifting through the polluted oil fields of to find answers.

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About James Nestor

James Nestor is a journalist who has written for Outside, , , Dwell, National Public Radio, The New York Times, , , and others.

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Additional quotes by James Nestor

Seven books of the Chinese Tao dating... to around 400BCE focused entirely on breathing... Even earlier, Hindus considered breath and spirit the same thing, and described elaborate practices... to balance breathing and preserve... mental and physical health. ...Buddhists ...use breathing ...to lengthen their lives [and] reach higher planes of consciousness. Breathing... for all... these cultures, was powerful medicine.

It's a hard thing to fathom, the concept that you, me, the birds, and the bees—all life that is and has ever been—came from a few chemical reactions on some ugly rocks a few billion years ago. Proposing such a theory... [e]ven 50 years ago... might have gotten you... ostracized by the scientific community.
That all changed in 1977 when... chartered a research vessel... to the Galápagos Trench. Corliss suspected that a... , was erupting on the deep seafloor... [A]t a depth of around 2,500 meters... ANGUS’s temperature gauge registered a... spike. After several hours, the team... developed the film. ...There was life..—crabs, mussels, lobsters, worms—all flourishing... The incredible pressure, 250 times that on the surface, kept the water from turning to steam.

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[Varying the temperature] on... the same hand, one area was grey and the other was red. ...It was at the Menninger Clinic... and a Navy physicist [Elmer Green] did these tests. It was reported in The New York Times. ...They haven't found [anyone else] who had the powers of . I think Wim's about as close as we've gotten...

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