Volcano life may hold key to a hydrogen economy

There’s a group of organisms called extremophiles, ones that have evolved to cope with conditions under which most organisms would simply curl up and die.  The organisms often have great applications, for example, enzymes taken from bacteria found in geysers has enabled the sequencing of the human genome.

Another one, it seems, may also hold the key to producing enough hydrogen to shift away from oil, this time an organism found in the pit of a collapsed volcano.  According to Science Daily scientists from across the world have formed a team to unlock the process refined by a billions-year old archaea. The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute will expedite the research by sequencing the hydrogen-producing organism for comparative genomics.