Life has adapted to all sorts of extreme environments on Earth, among them, animals such as the deer mouse, shimmying and shivering about, and having to squeeze enough energy from the cold, thin air to fuel their bodies and survive. Now, Scott et al. (2015) have examined the underlying muscle physiology from a group of highland and lowland deer mice. Deer mice were chosen because they exhibit t...

Extreme precipitation events can lead to severe mountain hazards, and they have therefore received widespread attention. The study of extreme be hindered by the insufficient number uneven distribution rain gauge stations, especially in mountainous areas with complex terrain. In this study, daily data three gridded products (Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM, IMERG; Multi-Source Weig...

Since Messner and Habeler climbed to the summit of Mount Everest (8,848 m) without oxygen in 1978, there has been controversy between scientists trying to explain this feat. Field studies have suggested better respiratory performance than that found during a simulated climb in a hypobaric chamber, but the lack of data at extreme altitude has hampered the debate. We measured arterial oxygen satu...

Life has adapted to all sorts of extreme environments on Earth, among them, animals such as the deer mouse, shimmying and shivering about, and having to squeeze enough energy from the cold, thin air to fuel their bodies and survive. Now, Scott et al. (2015) have examined the underlying muscle physiology from a group of highland and lowland deer mice. Deer mice were chosen because they exhibit t...

Effects of extreme environments on food intake in human subjects are analysed as behavioural and physiological adaptations to annual and circadian rhythms, temperature and altitude. Effects of the environment on food intake through food availability have direct consequences on energy balance and body weight. Different geographical regions show variations in the composition of dietary foods, i.e...

The Brazilian Atlantic rainforest consists of a typical tropical rainforest on mountain slopes, and stands out as a biodiversity hotspot for its high species richness and high level of species endemism. This forest is bordered by plant communities with lower species diversity, due mostly to more extreme environmental conditions than those found in the mesic rainforest. Between the mountain slop...

Natrinema altunense strain AJ2T, a halophilic archaeal strain, was isolated from a high-altitude (3884 m) salt lake in Xinjiang, China. This strain requires at least 1.7 M NaCl to grow and can grow anaerobically in the presence of nitrate. To understand the genetics underlying its extreme phenotype, we de novo assembled the entire genome sequence of AJ2T (=CGMCC 1.3731T=JCM 12890T). We assemble...