A collector of decorative candles.

1. In biology, thriving in trees or living in orchards.
2. In psychiatry, a love of trees, which may often be phallic symbols.
3. Loving trees so much as to live in them [people who live in tree houses?].

A collector of fur items or a fondness for objects made of fur.

In biology, a reference to a plant that is pollinated by two different insect species and having two kinds of flowers each adapted for one of the insect pollinators.

A collector of thimbles or a fondness for collecting thimbles.

A collector of bric-a-brac miniatures.

A preference for partial nudity during sex or for being partly dressed.

A collector of or specialist in phonograph records and compact discs [CD’s].

A collector of straw works or a fondness for objects made of straw.

In biology, dwelling and thriving in salty areas.

In biology, pollinated or fertilized through the agency of dew; pollinated by dew.

A person who frequents strip joints or likes to watch women or men strip.

A chemical compound or group that is attracted to electrons and tends to accept electrons. A molecule, or compound, that doesn’t have enough electrons and will tend to take them from another molecule, or compound, with an excess of electrons.

An advocate of free love.

In biology, pollinated by, or dispersed by the agency of, insects. Attracted to insects or attracted by insects, or (flowers) attractive to insects which fertilize them.

1. A type of white blood cell found in vertebrate blood, containing cytoplasmic granules that are easily stained by eosin or other acid dyes.
2. A microorganism, cell, or histological element easily stained by eosin or other acid dyes.

A sexual perversion in which sexual arousal and orgasm are dependent upon the partner being an adolescent.

A collector of theater programs.

The love of knowledge or the compulsion to inquire into things by seeking more and more information about certain subjects of interest; an abnormal preoccupation with knowledge and learning.

Sir Karl Popper (1902-94), the Austrian-born philosopher who taught at the London School of Economics from 1949 to 1969 had a “theory of falsification” that says, although scientific generalizations can’t be conclusively verified, they can be conclusively shown to be false, by a counter instance. As a result, science is not certain knowledge but rather a collection of “conjectures and refutations” that approach definite truths without reaching them.

He called his philosophy “critical rationalism” and “evolutionary epistemology” because he regarded the growth of human knowledge as a constant process of evolution and refinement.

A reference to a person who is obsessed with meddling in and gossiping about the sexual lives of others.

1. In biology, dwelling and thriving in desert regions.
2. In psychiatry, a morbid desire to be alone.

A special love or desire for working.

In psychiatry, A sexual perversion in which arousal and orgasm are dependent upon sacrificial killing of the partner; lust murder; sadism, rape [a crime of violence].

A collector o stamps other than those used for postage; such as, Christmas seals, tax stamps, etc.

A collector of etchings.

In biology, a reference to a plant or flower that has morphological adaptations for attracting and guiding a specialized pollinator.

In biology, capable of living in a wide range of temperatures.

In biology, thriving in or on leaf mold.

In biology, tolerant of a wide range of relatively high temperatures.

A collector of strange facts.

There are microbes that thrive under conditions that would kill other creatures; yet, many microorganisms make their homes in such forbidding environments as boiling or near freezing water, vinegar-like liquids, household ammonia, or concentrated brine. These microbes are called extremophiles because they thrive under conditions that, from the human position, are clearly extreme. Scientists have recognized that places once assumed to be sterile abound with microbial life.

Heat-loving microbes.

Heat-loving microbes, or thermophiles, are among the best studied of the extremophiles. Thermophiles reproduce, or grow, readily in temperatures greater than 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), and some of them, referred to as hyperthermophiles, favor temperatures above 80 degrees C (176 degrees F). Some hyperthermophiles even thrive in environments hotter than 100 degrees C (212 degrees F), the boiling point of water at sea level.

In comparison, most “normal” bacteria grow fastest in temperatures between 25 and 40 degrees C (77 and 104 degrees F). Further, no multicellular animals or plants have been found to tolerate temperatures above about 50 degrees C (122 degrees F).

Hydrothermal vents, sometimes called smokers, are essentially natural undersea rock chimneys through which erupts superheated, mineral-rich fluid as hot as 350 degrees C. To date, more than 50 species of hyperthermophiles have been isolated, many by Karl O. Stetter and his colleagues at the University of Regensburg in Germany. The most heat-resistant of these microbes, Pyrolobus fumarii, grows in the walls of smokers. It reproduces best in an environment of about 105 degrees C and can multiply in temperatures of up to 113 degrees C. Remarkably, it stops growing at temperatures below 90 degrees C (194 degrees F) because it’s “too cold”.

What is the upper temperature limit for life? Do “super-hyperthermophiles” capable of growth at 200 or 300 degrees C exist? No one knows, although current understanding suggests the limit will be about 150 degrees C. Above this temperature, probably no life-forms could prevent dissolution of the chemical bonds that maintain the integrity of DNA and other essential molecules.

Cold-loving microbes.

Cold environments are actually more common in the world than hot ones. The oceans, which maintain an average temperature of one to three degrees C (34 to 38 degrees F), make up over half the earth’s surface. Vast land areas of the Arctic and Antarctic are permanently frozen or are unfrozen for only a few weeks in the summer. Surprisingly, the most frigid places, like the hottest, support life, this time in the form of psychrophiles.

Acid-loving microbes.

Most natural environments on the earth are essentially neutral, having pH values between five and nine. Acidophiles thrive in rare habitats that have pH below five. Highly acidic environments can result naturally from geochemical activities (such as the production of sulfurous gases in hydrothermal vents and some hot springs) and from the metabolic activities of certain acidophiles themselves. Acidophiles are also found in the debris left over from coal mining.

Alkali-loving microbes.

Alkaliphiles favor habitats with a pH above nine. Some saline environments are also extremely alkaline because weathering of sodium carbonate and certain other salts can release ions that produce alkalinity. Not surprisingly, microbes in those environments are adapted to both high alkalinity and high salinity.

Alkaliphiles live in soils laden with carbonate and in so-called soda lakes, such as those found in Egypt, the Rift Valley of Africa and the western U.S.

Salt-loving microbes.

Halophiles inhabit intensely saline environments, especially natural salt lakes and solar salt evaporation ponds. The latter are human-made pools where seawater collects and evaporates, leaving behind dense concentrations of salt that can be harvested for such purposes as melting ice.

A collector of hair.

A collector of steam locomotives.

A collector of watermarks.

A collector of whipping instruments.

A collector of lace bobbins.

In psychiatry, a subtype of zoophilia in which sexual arousal and orgasm are dependent upon the sensation produced by small bugs or other creatures crawling or nibbling at the skin, most frequently in the genital or anal areas or around the nipples.