The Cells That Breathe Two Ways | Quanta Magazine
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In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to do: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time.

Take a deep breath. A flow of air has rushed into your lungs, where the oxygen moves into your bloodstream, fueling metabolic fires in cells throughout your body. You, being an aerobic organism, use oxygen as the cellular spark that frees molecular energy from the food you eat. But not all organisms on the planet live or breathe this way. Instead of using oxygen to harvest energy…

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