by S. Mar­vin Fried­man — How can ther­mophilic bac­te­ria not only sur­vive, but ac­tu­ally pro­lif­er­ate, at el­e­vated tem­per­a­tures that would be lethal to all other forms of life? Af­ter ex­ten­sive re­search dur­ing the past five decades, this ques­tion has been an­swered in a gen­eral way, but the mol­e­c­u­lar ba­sis for this un­usual ca­pa­bil­ity has not been…