Surviving in Hot Water

Dr. Kiki Sanford (0:00)

This is Twist. This Week in Science, episode number 1077, recorded Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026, surviving in hot water.

Hey, everyone, I'm Dr. Kiki, and today we will fill your head with two brains, tiny shrimp, and the new kitty.

Blair (0:22)

Kitty.

Dr. Kiki Sanford (0:23)

But first, thanks to our amazing Patreon sponsors for their generous support of Twist. You can become a part of the Patreon community at patreon.com/thisweek in Science. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer.

Vought ought to keep his hands off of funding reserved for science. The meddling is far from meritorious and rather reprehensible at its core. Thank goodness, firm pressure is holding off the onslaught of even more political creep into the research we seek, for now at least. Don't worry. It's all good here on This Week in Science, coming up next.

Blair (1:37)

Good science to you, Kiki.

Dr. Kiki Sanford (1:41)

And a good science to you too, Blair, and everyone out there. Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. Thank you all for enjoying science and being here to appreciate curiosity for the world around us. Woo woo! On this week's show, we have tons of science news.

I have stories about sleep cells, amoebas in hot water, your two brains, and a lot more, actually. Blair, what's in the animal corner?

Blair (2:13)

Just more. I have a kitty, I have giant sea spiders, and I have friendly beetles during climate change.

Dr. Kiki Sanford (2:25)

Friendly beetles during climate change? I want to make beetle friends.

Blair (2:30)

Yeah. I mean, step one, be another beetle is ultimately, this is beetle on beetle friendship that we're going to be talking about.

Dr. Kiki Sanford (2:37)

Step one, be a beetle. Step two, be a beetle.

Blair (2:42)

Step three, get rid of your bank account. Step four, sell your car. Step five, quit your job. Step six, roll some poop. You know, just some ideas.

Dr. Kiki Sanford (2:54)

Oh, simple instructions. I like this.

Blair (2:57)

Okay.

Dr. Kiki Sanford (3:00)

All right, everyone, we have a show in the works for the night. I am looking forward to the conversations that are to come. If you are not ready, not ready, not already subscribed to This Week in Science, make sure you click that subscribe button wherever you are watching us right now. We're on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch weekly 8 p.m. Pacific Time-ish. Streaming live, you can come and join the chat. You can have a conversation with other people here, and have a conversation with us.

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Blair (4:22)

Yes.

Dr. Kiki Sanford (4:23)

Okay, let's do this. I want to start with the being in hot water.

Can we start off in hot water?

Blair (4:31)

That sounds good. Should we just pause and I'll take a bath?

Dr. Kiki Sanford (4:35)

Well, that's just nice hot water.

Blair (4:37)

Okay, this is bad hot water.

Dr. Kiki Sanford (4:38)

Well, this is really hot water. So researchers just published in Cell, the journal Cell, an open access paper entitled, A Geothermal Amoeba Sets a New Upper Temperature Limit for Eukaryotes.

So normally, we talk about the temperature that life can withstand, and the extremes are set by types of organisms called extremophiles. And these extremophiles are usually archaebacteria. So a bit simpler, this weird bridge between the unicellular and the unicellular with a nucleus life, or more complex with nucleus life. So the archaebacteria are considered the extremophiles, and we find them in hot springs, in super hot places, or super cold places, the places. But it's the extremophiles that have kind of set that limit on where we might be able to find stuff we could consider life. But the limits to life itself, more, and not just single-celled, no-nucleus kind of life, but the prokaryotes, but eukaryotes, cells with nuclei, cells that are more complex, usually multicellular, animals even. We're not talking about amoeba. We're talking about amoebas. And those are like the simplest of the little animals.