MicrobeWorld

Small Things Considered co-blogger Merry Youle has a post about the diversity of life in McKelvey Valley, a broad, glacially-carved pass just west of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. Her writing is inspired in part by a recent paper from the University of Hong Kong (See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19850879) that demonstrates life in McKelvey has adapted to form "highly-specialized communities in distinct lithic niches occurring concomitantly" within the harshest of Earthly terrains.