Endothermic microbial growth. A calorimetric investigation of an extreme case of entropy-driven microbial growth

Life is almost always associated with the generation of heat. Thus far, all chemotrophic life forms that have been studied in calorimeters were found to be exothermic. Certain literature reports have even cast doubt on the ex istence of endothermic growth, even though thermodynamic principles do not rule it out. The present report describes the first experiments demonstrati ng the actual existence of chemotrophic life forms that take up heat rather than produce it.