Fungi eat gamma rays !

[Lord of the Abyss]

Haven't seen this posted : Link

Gamma radiation: It's what's for dinner
By Matt Ford | Published: May 24, 2007 - 07:46PM CT

In April of 1986, reactor four of the Chernobyl nuclear power station suffered a steam explosion that began a chain of events that lead to the most catastrophic nuclear meltdown in history. Even now, 21 years after the blast, the reactor is encased in cement, as it is too radioactive for most living things to get too close; the operative word in the preceding sentence being "most." When a robotic survey entered the remains of reactor four a few years ago, it came back with samples of a fungus. The black fungus had thrived in the highly radioactive environment.


That discovery prompted one Prof. Casadevall, chair of microbiology & immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, to ask his colleagues what might allow this to be possible. Published this week in the open access journal PLoS ONE, the researchers found that melanin, a naturally occurring pigment in many fungi, allows the organism to "eat" ionizing radiation, converting it into useful energy that the organism can directly use. To further test this hypothesis, two different species of fungi were exposed to high doses of radiation: Cryptococcus neoformans, which was mutated to produce melanin, and Wangiella dermatitidis, which naturally contains melanin. Both species were found to grow significantly faster when exposed to radiation levels 500 times that of the background radiation as compared to samples grown under radiologically-normal conditions. Further research into the mechanism of how melanin converts radiation into fungus food revealed that the high energy radiation alters the electronic structure of the melanin, allowing the process to proceed. This finding is doubly interesting, since traditionally, fungi, unlike plants, are not autotrophs and depend upon an external food source. Plants, on the other hand, harness sunlight to create their food.

The fact that an organism can survive—and even thrive—under such harsh conditions shouldn't be a surprise, since we (as a species) have discovered a whole slew of extremophile organisms in the past decade. However, this discovery could be a potential solution to a real world problem. "Since ionizing radiation is prevalent in outer space, astronauts might be able to rely on fungi as an inexhaustible food source on long missions or for colonizing other planets," said Dr. Ekaterina Dadachova, associate professor of nuclear medicine and microbiology and immunology, and lead author of the study. In addition to the plant's potential as a food source, Dr. Casadevall posits "that Earth's energetics—in particular, the amount of radiation energy being converted to biological energy—may need to be recalculated."

Fascinating.

[Dennis Toy]

i see shades of the Andromeda Strain. Lets just hope somewhere there is a wildfire facility that has a large store of alkalines.

[Academia Nut]

Actually, with this coming so close on the tail of the Fallout trailer, I was thinking more along the lines of "Super mutants ho!" seeing as humans produce melanin too, although obviously in much lower quantities and our cell structure is much more delicate to the kinds of damage caused by gamma rays. Still, pretty cool, and we could definitely use stuff like this in all sorts of places.

[Patrick Degan]

i see shades of the Andromeda Strain. Lets just hope somewhere there is a wildfire facility that has a large store of alkalines.

Uh uh, more like The Green Slime:

[Lord of the Abyss]

Actually, with this coming so close on the tail of the Fallout trailer, I was thinking more along the lines of "Super mutants ho!" seeing as humans produce melanin too, although obviously in much lower quantities and our cell structure is much more delicate to the kinds of damage caused by gamma rays.

Don't worry, the gamma rays will turn the melanin green, and you'll get super strong and get the urge to refer to yourself in the third person and go around smashing stuff.

[Surlethe]

Could a thick layer of adapted fungi be used as both a gamma ray shield and food for astronauts in space? What percentage of gamma rays are absorbed by the melanin?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Could a thick layer of adapted fungi be used as both a gamma ray shield and food for astronauts in space? What percentage of gamma rays are absorbed by the melanin?

That's exactly what it's being looked at for. The idea is to, as you say, act as a shield that self-regenerates and a food source that doesn't rely on visible spectrum light.

[Singular Intellect]

Could a thick layer of adapted fungi be used as both a gamma ray shield and food for astronauts in space? What percentage of gamma rays are absorbed by the melanin?

That's exactly what it's being looked at for. The idea is to, as you say, act as a shield that self-regenerates and a food source that doesn't rely on visible spectrum light.

Wow, so we're going to skip the 100% artifical starships and jump right into partially organic ones.

[Hawkwings]

Hey, there's nothing bad about cyborg ships! Just completely bio-ships...

[White Haven]

Yeah, but then your rad shielding gets chicken pox, and you're just fucked.

[SAMAS]

i see shades of the Andromeda Strain. Lets just hope somewhere there is a wildfire facility that has a large store of alkalines.

Uh uh, more like The Green Slime:

I keep seeing a bizarre Marvel/Warhammer 40,000 mix:

ORK SMASH PUNY 'UMIES!

[Surlethe]

Could a thick layer of adapted fungi be used as both a gamma ray shield and food for astronauts in space? What percentage of gamma rays are absorbed by the melanin?

That's exactly what it's being looked at for. The idea is to, as you say, act as a shield that self-regenerates and a food source that doesn't rely on visible spectrum light.

That makes sense. And if fungi can evolve to "eat" ionizing radiation, shouldn't they be able to evolve to "eat" other sorts of radiation, too? This seems like the sort of experiment one could do with a fast-growing fungus and a blacklight or UV lamp in the backyard shed.

[wolveraptor]

Perhaps this is how early life survived in an environment without an ozone layer? This is one way they could've thrived until plants evolved and began to release O2 (thus leading to O3) into the atmosphere. This also be how alien life could survive on planets which we once would've thought uninhabitable due to radiation.

[Gustav32Vasa]

Perhaps this is how early life survived in an environment without an ozone layer? This is one way they could've thrived until plants evolved and began to release O2 (thus leading to O3) into the atmosphere. This also be how alien life could survive on planets which we once would've thought uninhabitable due to radiation.

Acually early life lived under deep water so the radiation didnt pose a big threat.

[Patrick Degan]

I think speculations regarding the use of fungi as cosmic ray protection on spacecraft are a bit premature. It's clear from the scene at Chernobyl that although fungi are thriving on the radiation from the ruined reactor n. 4 it is still a hot zone. This leaves you with the problem of insulating the crew which a layer of fungi growth will not solve. The possibility of fungi as a food source for long space missions, however, is an intriguing one and does merit further investigation.

[Starglider]

If biology can do it, technology will eventually be able to do it better. This simple rule always works. Maybe it will take arbitrary amounts of (dry, hopefully) nanotechnology, maybe not, but once we work out what's going on we should be able to make gamma-ray capturing solar panels which are if necessary self-repairing.

[wolveraptor]

If biology can do it, technology will eventually be able to do it better. This simple rule always works. Maybe it will take arbitrary amounts of (dry, hopefully) nanotechnology, maybe not, but once we work out what's going on we should be able to make gamma-ray capturing solar panels which are if necessary self-repairing.

I think the more exciting possibility was the idea of a self-replenshing food source. After all, we do already have some form of radiation shielding. We don't, however, have a way to create a space station that doesn't require constant resupplying.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I think the more exciting possibility was the idea of a self-replenshing food source. After all, we do already have some form of radiation shielding. We don't, however, have a way to create a space station that doesn't require constant resupplying.

That was the point, actually. The shielding aspect was secondary, what was really interesting was the idea of growing this organism as foodstuffs using only cosmic rays. As fancy as thus-far-not-made nanotech and inefficient PV cells are, you can't eat them. Besides, a better composite hull shielding with an active EM element for certain manoeuvres closer to, say, the sun would be better than anything today.