Radiation-loving fungi: space food?

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docm

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Link....<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>Radiation-loving fungi: the perfect space food?</b><br /><br />Dark-coloured fungi devour radiation and convert it to fuel, a new study reports. The work suggests such fungi could be grown in the high-radiation environment of space and fed to astronauts on extended space missions.<br /><br />The fungi use the compound melanin, the pigment that makes both skin and truffles dark.<br /><br />"Just as the pigment chlorophyll converts sunlight into chemical energy that allows green plants to live and grow, our research suggests that melanin can use a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum – ionising radiation – to benefit the fungi containing it," says study leader Ekaterina Dadachova of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, US.<br /><br />Their experiment was fairly simple. Team member Arturo Casadevall, chair of microbiology and immunology at Einstein, was reading about fungi found growing in and around the now-closed nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, which was heavily contaminated by an accident in 1986.<br /><br />"It gave us the idea that maybe fungi use melanin to harness radiation," Casadevall says.<br /><br />So the researchers grew fungi – some types with and others without melanin – and zapped them with gamma rays. The dark, melanin-rich fungi grew better when radiated.<br /><br />Casadevall thinks that fungi may be able to live in seemingly inhospitable places, so long as there is some radiation. Such radiation-loving fungi could serve as a source of food for astronauts living in space for long periods, the team speculates. "Fungi do very well in dark, damp places, and you could imagine that space is totally radioactive," Casadevall says.<br /><br />His lab will test fungi against a range of electromagnetic radiation, from ultraviolet light to vis</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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robnissen

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Interesting. Fungi might be especially useful for a manned trip to Europa (due to the high radiation put out by Jupiter). Of course, that might be a couple of years away. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />
 
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exoscientist

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One of the arguments against life being transferred between planets or between star systems is that they could not survive for the many years in space unprotected from space radiation. <br />This argument becomes invalid if the microbes could actually live on radiation. <br />Note as well this could make possible life in the interior of comets. One explanation for the aqueous minerals seen in carbonaceous meteorites and for the carbonate found on Comet Tempel 1 is that liquid water was produced in comet interiors early in the solar systems history from radiogenic heating. However, the argument went such radioactivity would have been enough to kill any life within the comets. This argument also becomes invalid if the life could live on this radiation.<br /><br /><br />Bob Clark<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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MeteorWayne

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This certainly does raise intriguing possibilities.<br /><br />From what I gathered, the fungi's growth was <i> accelerated </i> by the radiation, but other energy pathways were already functioning using more "normal" sources.<br /><br />However, maybe it's not too much a stretch to believe an organism could develop using radiation as it's only source of energy. I mean that's what life does; takes energyu and reproduces <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <br /><br />Once again life proves more resiliant than we might have suspected. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>
 
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grokme

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Could it be used to resolve our problems with nucleur waste? What byrpoducts are created by the consumption of the radiation? Wasn't clear on that.
 
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grokme

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Radiation Loving Fun Guy? Sounds like a good SNL character.
 
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