Part of the thrill of reading Hacker News is just that it gives such unexpected fun, out of nowhere. Who knows why, but yes, the posting is from 2006. People used to think that microbes couldn't live in extreme conditions like these guys (Firmicutes - from the Latin for strong) do. They are in the same family as the microbes in animal guts.
Do these come from the same place as the arsenic fueled bacteria?