Volcanic steam vents : life at low pH and high temperature / Rio Tinto : an extreme acidic environmental model of astrobiological interest / Blossoms of rot : microbial life in saline organic-rich sediments / The haloarchaea of Great Salt Lake as models for potential extant life on Mars / Arsenic- and light hydrocarbon-rich hypersaline soda lakes and their resident microbes as possible models for extraterrestrial biomes / Antarctic bacteria as astrobiological models / Extremophilic life in our oceans as models for astrobiology / Challenging the survival thresholds of a desert cyanobacterium under laboratory simulated and space conditions / Lichens as astrobiological models : experiments to fathom the limits of life in extraterrestrial environments / Resistance of the archaean Halococcus morrhuae and the biofilm-forming bacterium Halomonas muralis to exposure to low Earth orbit for 534 days / The amazing journey of Cryomyces antarcticus from Antarctica to space / Tardigrades : evolutionary explorers in extreme environments / Spore-forming bacteria as model organisms for studies in astrobiology / Potential energy production and utilization pathways of the Martian subsurface : clues from extremophilic microorganisms on Earth / Origin of initial communities of thermophilic extremophiles on Earth by efficient response to oscillations in the environment / Extremophiles and horizontal gene transfer : clues to the emergence of life / What do the DPANN archaea and the CPR bacteria tell us about the last universal common ancestors? / Can biogeochemistry give reliable biomarkers in the solar system?