Fungi That 'Eat' Radiation Are Growing On The Walls Of Chernobyl

[Mito]

“Back in 1991, scientists were amazed when they made the discovery...

In the eerie environment inside the abandoned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, researchers remotely piloting robots spotted pitch black fungi growing on the walls of the decimated No. 4 nuclear reactor and even apparently breaking down radioactive graphite from the core itself. What's more, the fungi seemed to be growing towards sources of radiation, as if the microbes were attracted to them!

More than a decade later, University of Saskatchewan Professor Ekaterina Dadachova (then at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York) and her colleagues acquired some of the fungi and found that they grew faster in the presence of radiation compared to other fungi. The three species tested, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans and Wangiella dermatitidis, all had large amounts of the pigment melanin, which is found – among many places – in the skin of humans. People with a darker skin tone have much more of it. Melanin is known to absorb light and dissipate ultraviolet radiation, but in the fungi, it seemed to also be absorbing radiation and converting it into chemical energy for growth, perhaps in a similar fashion to how plants utilize the green pigment chlorophyll to attain energy from photosynthesis.”

https://www.realclearscience.com/bl...lls_of_chernobyls_ruined_nuclear_reactor.html

 

[Tarmander]

that is so cool. I wonder if they can use these for something

Coat nuclear subs with them in some places to lower radiation levels or something

 

[yerrag]

It's nice to know that when doomsday ever materializes, those fungi can eventually evolve into more intelligent life forms like human, down the eons.

 

[burtlancast]

Great find.

Also, for people who never heard about Brown's gaz able to neutralize radiation: The Properties of Brown's Gas - Radioactivity Neutralization Methods

 

[Hugh Johnson]

Life, uh, finds a way.

 

[Mauritio]

“Back in 1991, scientists were amazed when they made the discovery...

In the eerie environment inside the abandoned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, researchers remotely piloting robots spotted pitch black fungi growing on the walls of the decimated No. 4 nuclear reactor and even apparently breaking down radioactive graphite from the core itself. What's more, the fungi seemed to be growing towards sources of radiation, as if the microbes were attracted to them!

More than a decade later, University of Saskatchewan Professor Ekaterina Dadachova (then at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York) and her colleagues acquired some of the fungi and found that they grew faster in the presence of radiation compared to other fungi. The three species tested, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans and Wangiella dermatitidis, all had large amounts of the pigment melanin, which is found – among many places – in the skin of humans. People with a darker skin tone have much more of it. Melanin is known to absorb light and dissipate ultraviolet radiation, but in the fungi, it seemed to also be absorbing radiation and converting it into chemical energy for growth, perhaps in a similar fashion to how plants utilize the green pigment chlorophyll to attain energy from photosynthesis.”

Fungi That 'Eat' Radiation Are Growing on the Walls of Chernobyl's Ruined Nuclear Reactor | RealClearScience

Very interesting. Nature finds solutions to everything.
There's also bacteria that eat up plastic from the ocean.

I recently watched a documentary on wolfs in Chernobyl . By now they have the biggest wolf population in europe there . Experts said it would take a few more decades until animals can live in Chernobyl, but besides being very radioactive those wolfs are perfectly healthy. No deformations or obvious defects.

 

[Amazoniac]

- Extremophile - Wikipedia

 

[Callmestar]

There's a good documentary on netflix 'fantastic fungi' about this sort of thing. Using fungi to eat up oil spills etc. As well the possible health and psychological benefits of mushrooms.

 

[Perry Staltic]

Fungi eating radioactive fungi doesn't mean the radioactivity goes away, it means the fungi become radioactive. They found a lot of this stuff on the ground in Tokyo after Fukushima - black radioactive hotspots.