Cryp­tic Odd­balls

by Jamie Henzy

Read­ers, sharpen your pen­cils and put on your se­cret de­coder rings. We need you to crack these cryp­tograms!

Fig­ure 1.  Elec­tron mi­cro­graph of Psyo­gy­gisp in­fected by a virus. Bar, 1 µm. Source

First is a list of Ar­chaea – prokary­otes that were con­si­dered "odd­ball bac­te­ria" be­fore Carl Woese and oth­ers showed that they are ac­tu­ally more closely re­lated to us than to bac­te­ria. Be­low that is a list of truly odd­ball bac­te­ria – those that thrive in ex­treme en­vi­ron­ments.

Each list was en­crypted sep­a­rately, so each list has its own cod­ing scheme. The an­swer key will be posted on Mon­day.

Ar­chaea

Fxtueg­wyr­per rzc­qg­wx­cyse
Psyo­gy­gisp rzc­qgzryqrucsp
Et­fxrdgzryqgzgz­zsp lrd­dr­pzxcc
Xrygm­srqurfse jryp­ihc
Bt­g­b­teer irugppc
Drd­gruzxrtse tm­scfrdp
Et­fxrdg­pruzcdr usetd
Et­fxrdg­whusp vrdqy­tuc

 

Fig­ure 2.  A cozy home for Rk­wljox­ixvpk might be this sub­glacial stream of < 1°C at the Glac­ier de Mont Mine, Swiss Alps. Source

Bac­te­r­ial ex­tremophiles

Usevxlxllfk op­uex­u­fopvk
Ljowk­sx­cplm­soefi qossvzpvusvkek
Mj­soifk phf­p­melfk
Kpzevelxzp kpzpoefk
Mjex­cplez­zfk pleuxr­jezfk
Jszelx­cplmso rwzxoe
Kpzevec­plmso ofcso
Rk­wljox­ixvpk evqopjpiee

 

And here is, as promised, the an­swer key (click will down­load the PDF).