https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2020/02/04/fungi_that_eats_radiation_is_growing_on_the_walls_of_chernobyls_ruined_nuclear_reactor.html

> Back in 1991, scientists were amazed when they made the discovery… In 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.

> Now, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans and Wangiella dermatitidis, have all been found to have large amounts of the pigment melanin. It seemed to 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.

Or perhaps using nuclear radiation to produce Vitamin D?

mollwollfumble said:

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2020/02/04/fungi_that_eats_radiation_is_growing_on_the_walls_of_chernobyls_ruined_nuclear_reactor.html

> Back in 1991, scientists were amazed when they made the discovery… In 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.

> Now, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans and Wangiella dermatitidis, have all been found to have large amounts of the pigment melanin. It seemed to 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.

Or perhaps using nuclear radiation to produce Vitamin D?

I didn’t like this article, mainly because it gave no details on the radiation. Did the fungi respond to alpha radiation? Beta? Was it responding to the infrared radiation from the still-warm graphite? It even had the sentence, “ The ISS environment exposes inhabitants to between 40 and 80 times more radiation than on Earth”, which, as stated, is not correct. Most of the radiation received both here on Earth and by the ISS is in the visible and near-visible band, and the total radiation received at the ISS is maybe 40% higher than we receive here. What they mean is the ISS environment exposes inhabitants to between 40 and 80 times more electromagnetic radiation in the ionising frequency range.

that seems to fit reasonably with a common, colloquial understanding of radiation though

SCIENCE said:

that seems to fit reasonably with a common, colloquial understanding of radiation though

I’d like some detail. Too much to ask?

The answer appears to be that they tested the response of the fungi to gamma radiation from rhenium-188 and tungsten-188: emits in the 155 keV to beta – 764 keV range.

I will go right on ahead and assume they allowed for the temperature increases.

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

that seems to fit reasonably with a common, colloquial understanding of radiation though

I’d like some detail. Too much to ask?

It’s gamma radiation. Have a look at
Ionizing radiation changes the electronic properties of melanin and enhances the growth of melanized fungi (Dadachova E, Bryan RA, Huang X, Moadel T, Schweitzer AD, Aisen P, Nosanchuk JD, Casadevall A (2007); PLoS ONE. 2 (5): e457)
and
Relationship between secondary metabolism and fungal development (Calvo AM, Wilson RA, Bok JW, Keller NP (2002); Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 66 (3): 447459)

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

that seems to fit reasonably with a common, colloquial understanding of radiation though

I’d like some detail. Too much to ask?

we agree and think this is fair

like, not hard to imagine the headline, “leafy green vegetables eat radiation!”

SCIENCE said:

“leafy green vegetables eat radiation!”

True.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2020/02/04/fungi_that_eats_radiation_is_growing_on_the_walls_of_chernobyls_ruined_nuclear_reactor.html

> Back in 1991, scientists were amazed when they made the discovery… In 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.

> Now, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans and Wangiella dermatitidis, have all been found to have large amounts of the pigment melanin. It seemed to 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.

Or perhaps using nuclear radiation to produce Vitamin D?

I didn’t like this article, mainly because it gave no details on the radiation. Did the fungi respond to alpha radiation? Beta? Was it responding to the infrared radiation from the still-warm graphite? It even had the sentence, “ The ISS environment exposes inhabitants to between 40 and 80 times more radiation than on Earth”, which, as stated, is not correct. Most of the radiation received both here on Earth and by the ISS is in the visible and near-visible band, and the total radiation received at the ISS is maybe 40% higher than we receive here. What they mean is the ISS environment exposes inhabitants to between 40 and 80 times more electromagnetic radiation in the ionising frequency range.

they’re using radiation in the more colloquial sense of radioactive, what may be dangerous that way, chernobyl and nuclear reactor were mentioned

and you’re right it is potentially misleading, feeds the phone tower paranoia, it’s bad enough deep state actors are watching all of us moving around inside our houses using passive radar reflection from microwave ovens

related, possibly interesting subject, is DNA repair in highly radioactive environments, of organisms, subject to high levels of radiation that do damage, adaptations to, it’s got to have analogies, or applications in computer or data error correction, and system repair

encoding > decoding

btm said:

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

that seems to fit reasonably with a common, colloquial understanding of radiation though

I’d like some detail. Too much to ask?

It’s gamma radiation. Have a look at
Ionizing radiation changes the electronic properties of melanin and enhances the growth of melanized fungi (Dadachova E, Bryan RA, Huang X, Moadel T, Schweitzer AD, Aisen P, Nosanchuk JD, Casadevall A (2007); PLoS ONE. 2 (5): e457)
and
Relationship between secondary metabolism and fungal development (Calvo AM, Wilson RA, Bok JW, Keller NP (2002); Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 66 (3): 447459)

Yes, gamma, that makes sense. I don’t think melanin can do much with alpha or beta radiation, and that’s short distance anyway. The graphite they’re talking about is the reflector, which is some distance from the fuel rods.

> The ISS environment exposes inhabitants to between 40 and 80 times more radiation than on Earth

If we take “radiation” to be used in its colloquial sense as equivalent to “ionising radiation”, then that’s in the right ballpark. Astronauts are exposed to ionizing radiation with effective doses in the range from 50 to 2,000 mSv. On the ISS it’s close to 80 mSv. The worldwide average natural dose to humans is 2.4 mSv.