NASA reports that Incendiamoeba cascadensis, collected in Lassen Volcanic National Park, divides at 63 °C and keeps moving at 64 °C. The Cell paper it cites put the previous eukaryotic ceiling at 60 °C. The amoeba stays partly active at 66 °C and can recover after five minutes at 70 °C. Science News reports the same organism dividing at 145 °F, which is 63 °C, in a Cell paper dated 22 September.
NASA says Incendiamoeba cascadensis divides at 63 °C, above a previous eukaryotic ceiling of 60 °C cited in the Cell paper, and keeps moving at 64 °C. Science News says the amoeba can divide at 145 °F. Those are the same division temperature, stated in two scales. Both tie the result to a Cell paper published on 22 September.[1], [2]
NASA, reporting the Cell paper, says the amoeba stays partly active at 66 °C and can recover after five minutes at 70 °C. It also says the amoeba keeps searching for food at 64 °C. Science News's lede states the division temperature and does not restate those higher probes. The 66 °C and 70 °C results stay with NASA's account of the paper. NASA adds that the result is a laboratory upper limit and does not show that other eukaryotes tolerate the same heat.[1], [2]
NASA says the amoeba was collected in Lassen Volcanic National Park. For a cell with a nucleus, the temperatures it reports sit above the band where membranes were expected to fail. That expectation is the framing NASA gives. The shared finding is narrower and does not need it: a eukaryote from that park divides at 63 °C, and a second newsroom reports the same record in Fahrenheit.[1], [2]
