Extremophiles: Life At The Extremes!

Microbes have managed to live at the extremes of the conditions under which we find life on Earth. Phil will describe the hunt for, and study of, these "Extremophiles" - where they've been found and what we know about how they manage to grow in conditions that are inhospitable to other organisms (heat, cold, pH, radiation, and pressure, for example).  These organisms are serving as models for NASA, as that agency explores the possibilities of finding life on other bodies in the Solar System.
Sonoma County resident, Philip Harriman, has been studying the world of microbes for five decades. He earned his BS in Physics in 1959 from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and his PhD in Biophysics at UC Berkeley, with postdoctoral research at the Genetics Institute, University of Cologne, Germany. Retired Program Director for Microbial Genetics at the National Science Foundation, he was one of the founders of the interdisciplinary "Life in Extreme Environments" program. Work on this project took him from the hot springs of Yellowstone to the coast of Antarctica.