Parococcus denitrificans doesn't even notice gravity changes up to 74,000 gravities, while our good friend
Escheria coli keeps breeding right up to 400 kilogravities. They didn't just survive, they continued breeding in a new "pellet" form, with hordes of ultragravity-tolerant bacteria crushed together by the incredible pressure. All this time, Pac-Man has been tougher than we ever gave him credit for.
Namco
Holy shit, he's their king.
On the upside,
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
also survives at increased gravities, so at least we'll have beer as we fall into the gravity well of a massive body. (We've had nights like that.) The results show that, as well as planets, life might survive on non-hot brown dwarf failed stars. Though that's already been proven by the STD colonies on Tila Tequila.
In the time it takes you to get used to a new house, bacteria can evolve to suit it and spawn new species specifically tuned for your bathroom. Which you should probably clean, you filthy person. The most incredible examples of that are Bacillus isronensis and friends, which researchers found about 20 miles straight up by lofting a hot air balloon equipped with cryotubes. Which sounds like steampunk, except it's actually doing something useful.
Lady Clankington's Little Death Ray
Though they're not the only ones. (NSFW)
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and colleagues discovered three new species adapted for the stratospheric lifestyle. The bacteria have evolved enhanced tolerance to ultraviolet radiation and consider thin air more than enough live on. And in. The most incredible part is how they got up there in the first place: The researchers hypothesize that they're the action movie heroes of the micro-organic world, riding the blast wave of massive explosions to get where they need to be. Volcanic explosions, reverse lightning strikes from thunderclouds, the heat plumes from forest fires -- these things commute via natural disaster.
Getty
Oh man, I missed the volcanic eruption. Now I have to wait until the Midwest catches fire again.
That's a big deal. There's a "panspermia" theory, which says that life is like GameFAQs: It might be really hard for the first person to unlock a new level, but once they do, it's much easier for others to use that instead of starting from scratch. The idea is that the building blocks of life can be fired from planet to planet by cosmic disasters and asteroids. Even if living organisms can't survive the process, the Lego of life they're made of can be carried around, especially since we've now seen living things surviving tectonic explosions and hypergravity.
Another possibility is the bacteria ascending through gravito-photophoresis, which is a transport for bacteria and an intelligence test for humans (did you read the word or just skip over it?). Gravito-photophoresis is the elevating effect of a shaft of light in a fluid medium -- the sunlight heating a column of air, which lifts anything small enough as it goes. Those heavenly rays of sun through the clouds might artistically elevate your soul, but they can assume bacteria's bodies, too.