K.T. Ramesh

And one of the things we worry about is not just what the pressure is, but how fast it's put on.

Because if I put the pressure on very slowly...

Maybe you adapt to it.

And in fact, we know there are some bacteria that live way below the surface of the Earth.

So there are bacteria that can adapt to high pressures.

Maybe not this high, but high pressures.

But if you do it as a shock, it happens really fast.

They get really cold and they get really dry.

They get bombarded by radiation.

And we know that you make things really cold, you can keep them from growing.

You make them really dry, you can kill them.

You put radiation on, you can kill them.

Organisms that can survive desiccation.

Organisms that can survive extreme cold.

That can survive radiation.

We call them extremophiles.

They like extreme conditions.

That question we did not have a good answer to.

So that's how I got into this, is I felt like the data wasn't really there to justify us saying one way or the other.

And I figured that maybe I could do this a little more cleanly.