Scientific American: News In Brief: E.T. Life-Forms Might Resemble Newly Discovered Microbial Community: January 17, 2002 Far below a mountain range in Idaho, in hydrothermal waters circulating through igneous rocks, lurks a unique community of microbes that may one day help scientists find similar forms of life on other planets. According to a report published today in the journal Nature, the newly discovered organisms are "unlike any previously described on earth."