At depth, microbes shrink in size and become extremely sluggish. The liveliest of them may divide no more than once a century18, some no more than perhaps once in five hundred years. As The Economist has put it: 'The key to long life, it seems, is not to do too much19.
At great depths, microbial life becomes significantly smaller and much less active. The most dynamic organisms may only reproduce once every hundred years, while others can take up to five hundred years for a single division. This remarkable slow pace suggests that an absence of activity is central to their longevity.
This observation has been encapsulated by The Economist, which points out that the secret to an extended life might lie in minimizing effort and activity. Such insights reflect the unique adaptations of microbes to extreme environments, highlighting the relationship between metabolic activity and lifespan.
