Skeptics debated whether breaking down formate is enough to consider the bacteria living. Art Yayanos, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, believes an organism should only be considered living if it can reproduce. Subsequent results from independent research groups have shown the validity of the 2002 work. This is a significant step that reiterates the need for a new approach to the old problem of studying environmental extremes through experiments. There is practically no debate whether microbial life can survive pressures up to 600 MPa, which has been shown over the last decade or so to be valid through a number of scattered publications.