The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation • Hacker News Board

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#31

Post by lazide » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:11 PM UTC

mikkupikku wrote: post #19

lazide wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something the fungus COULD do (in a hypothetical world) is concentrate radioisotopes along with some moderator to accelerate the fission process and harvest more energy. Would probably require a lot more time than it would have, however, considering the relatively low amounts of radioisotopes in todays world (due to the halflife of most of them, and the age of our planet). Several billion years ago it could have been…

Maybe in principle, but neutron radiation from fallout/etc is relatively minimal and you really just have to wait out the decay of those isotopes. The good news is radiation detectors are insanely sensitive so you can map where the hotspots are and mitigate much of the risk using exclusion zones and / or various cleanup techniques to collect the radioactive material so it can be safety stored.

I think we’re agreeing?

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#32

Post by mikkupikku » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

VladVladikoff wrote: post #28

mikkupikku wrote: post #12

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills every time I read about this fungus. Let us grant the premise of a fungus somehow harnessing ionizing radiation using melanin; such a fungus could in principle be used to shield radioactive sources, but it won't "eat it up"; the radioactive isotopes emitting that radiation won't be disposed of in any way by the fungus. They don't eat those, and even if they did it wouldn't get rid o…

>the radioactive isotopes emitting that radiation won't be disposed of in any way by the fungus. They don't eat those, and even if they did it wouldn't get rid of them Please excuse the novice question but I am confused, where does the energy come from then?

Granting the premise, the fungus gets energy (but not mass) from the natural decay of radioactive particles. It doesn't accelerate that decay, the decay happens at the same pace it would have without the fungus. Just like planting more plants doesn't make the sun burn out any faster. The fungus itself is made of carbon and all the other usual stuff life is made from.

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#33

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

VladVladikoff wrote: post #28

mikkupikku wrote: post #12

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills every time I read about this fungus. Let us grant the premise of a fungus somehow harnessing ionizing radiation using melanin; such a fungus could in principle be used to shield radioactive sources, but it won't "eat it up"; the radioactive isotopes emitting that radiation won't be disposed of in any way by the fungus. They don't eat those, and even if they did it wouldn't get rid o…

>the radioactive isotopes emitting that radiation won't be disposed of in any way by the fungus. They don't eat those, and even if they did it wouldn't get rid of them Please excuse the novice question but I am confused, where does the energy come from then?

[deleted]

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#34

Post by mikkupikku » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #31

mikkupikku wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in principle, but neutron radiation from fallout/etc is relatively minimal and you really just have to wait out the decay of those isotopes. The good news is radiation detectors are insanely sensitive so you can map where the hotspots are and mitigate much of the risk using exclusion zones and / or various cleanup techniques to collect the radioactive material so it can be safety stored.

I think we’re agreeing?

Yes

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#35

Post by mrweasel » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:18 PM UTC

dodslaser wrote: post #20

mrweasel wrote: post #2

I wonder if you could power something of this? If the fungus have some type of melanin that will turn ionized radiation into energy, could we then use that to power something of background radiation? Also interesting to see how close this fungi will grow to the radiation source, or will it be able to mutate to completely envelop the radiation source.

Just dry the fungus and burn it. The process is fairly analogous to photosynthesis in plants, so we've basically already been doing this since we learned to make fire, just with a different source of radiation.

That would be fun on a space craft. Steam power spacecraft, powered by burning mushrooms.

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#36

Post by Joel_Mckay » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

once_inc wrote: post #10

reliablereason wrote: post #3

I did some basic calculations to compare the energy in the radiation vs the energy required to grow 10% extra. - If we assume they are working in the reactor we get radiation levels of something like 1 mGy/hour. But we can prop this up to mabye 500 mGy/hour since i dont know how they grew their culture - That leads to 0.05 J of extra energy per gram of microbial bio material. - Energy needed to grow 1g of microbial b…

Add in some evolutionary strategies, and you have the recipe for a good sci-fi book: a fungus in Chernobyl rapidly outpaces its competitors due to its ability to absorb radiation. Each iteration grows and reproduces faster, until it is so blindingingly fast that it begins to outpace the output the fuel rods produce. The world rejoices as this fungus is perfect for cleaning up nuclear waste products, until we realize…

Some fungi are already the largest organisms on earth at >200 km^2

Armillaria ostoyae ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillaria_ostoyae )

Consider when organisms must pass, that these ancient fungi likely still consume the host... Thus, on a 8000 year timescale most fungi doesn't necessarily need to pursue food that naturally dies in around a century.

Yeasts are already sharing your body along with numerous other organisms that are often harmless or even beneficial. Best not think about it too much if you are uncomfortable with seeing yourself as a mini ecosystem. =3

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#37

Post by mrweasel » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

firesteelrain wrote: post #5

How do you eat something you can’t see? It’s like eating electricity

... I mean, blind people exits. They can't see their food either, but I get where you're going: eating something with no mass.

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#38

Post by i_cannot_hack » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:29 PM UTC

reliablereason wrote: post #18

kalaksi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where you're going with this, but since they have actually researched how it grows, I think it's more likely your calculations/assumptions are incomplete. For example: > Energy needed to grow 1g of microbial biomaterial based on what? Edit: Maybe you meant that radiation alone wouldn't be enough for that growth, so there'd be other components that it's helping with.

Initially i asked a AI for standard values but here is a proper source: - Negentropy concept revisited: Standard thermodynamic properties of 16 bacteria, fungi and algae species ( https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.00494 ) > Maybe you meant that radiation alone wouldn't be enough for that growth, so there'd be other components that it's helping with. Yes. Clearly it grew as it grew, but the question is what drove/powered the…

> Initially i asked a AI for standard values

Don't do this, and don't then share the resulting numbers as fact publicly without disclosing you just asked a chatbot to make up something reasonable sounding.

If the chatbot refers to a source, read the source yourself and confirm it didn't make it up. If the chatbot did not refer to a source, you cannot be sure it didn't make something up.

The property measured in the source you linked, "enthalpy of formation", is not the same as the energy required to grow 1g of biomatter. One clue of this is that the number in the paper is negative, which would be very strange in the context you requested (but not in the context of the paper). For the curious: "A negative enthalpy of formation indicates that a compound is more stable than its constituent elements, as the process of forming it from the elements releases energy"

You're feeding yourself (and others) potentially inaccurate information due to overconfidence in the abilities of LLMs.

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#39

Post by kineticdaffodil » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:31 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation

#40

Post by ethmarks » Fri, Nov 28, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #35

dodslaser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just dry the fungus and burn it. The process is fairly analogous to photosynthesis in plants, so we've basically already been doing this since we learned to make fire, just with a different source of radiation.

That would be fun on a space craft. Steam power spacecraft, powered by burning mushrooms.

And the mushrooms would be powered by cosmic radiation...