Time: 7-9 p.m., Wednesday, September 26th

Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions)

Speakers: Samantha Giffen and Francesca Tomasi

Extremophiles are tiny organisms that live in pockets of the Earth where nothing else can survive. From basking in hydrothermal sea vents, volcanic springs, or the Mariana trench, to being scattered across the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, extremophiles are able not only to survive, but to thrive, in our planet’s harshest environments. In this talk, we will describe a day in the life of several different extremophiles, and tell the tale of what it takes to flourish where no other life form can. In the end, we will size them up against a whole other extreme environment: Mars. Do Earth’s hardiest organisms have what it takes to survive on another planet?