Imagine if this fungus and its radiation eating abilities was the key to interstellar travel.
The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
61–70 of 113 posts
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#62There is a pretty interesting wikipedia page dedicated to these type of fungi if someone wants a read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus
Interesting that it uses melanin to survive, I wonder if studying it in the context of vitiligo would reveal anything given vitiligo is not well understood generally.
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#63[dead]
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
What if the fungus accumulated radioactive particles in vesicles? Might they create chained reactions and thus deplete the radioactivity faster than spatially separated particles? Might that be plausible?
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#65I 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…
I mean... you're completely right and some of the stuff is as ridiculous as you're suggesting (e.g. the furniture). However... what we're agreeing on is that the fungus is absorbing alpha/beta particles and gamma rays that are coming off the radioactive material, which in theory should mean that it would act as a radiation shield. Whether it's a more effective radiation shield than other options is the big question, and for space travel in particular the question I'd want to know is how effective is a given mass of this fungus relative to other options (e.g. water).
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#66I 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…
> That leads to 0.05 J of extra energy per gram of microbial bio material Over what timeframe? If that’s 0.05 J per hour and “the researchers found that fungi that faced the galactic cosmic radiation for 26 days grew an average 1.21 times faster” 26 * 25 / 21% and the numbers don’t look that unreasonable.
I calculated over 5 days. Which was just a guess.
But i focused on the 10% mentioned.
That said time could be factored out if you did everything properly.
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#67I'm skeptical just because I know someone who has been working on the problem of radioactivity for like 30 years and they have left no stone unturned in that undertaking.
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What if the fungus accumulated radioactive particles in vesicles? Might they create chained reactions and thus deplete the radioactivity faster than spatially separated particles? Might that be plausible?
A chain reaction requires several kilograms, densely packed, if I'm not mistaken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass#Bare_sphere). So that's already a tall order for a fungus.
But the radio-active material stays in place. These fungi absorb the radiation.
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 s…
If i understand that correctly the "energy required to grow" would be bigger than the "enthalpy of formation"?
I hear you.
It was really just food for thought.
Re: The mysterious black fungus from Chernobyl that may eat radiation
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What if the fungus accumulated radioactive particles in vesicles? Might they create chained reactions and thus deplete the radioactivity faster than spatially separated particles? Might that be plausible?
> Might that be plausible?
Not really. You're talking about a fungus creating essentially a nuclear reactor inside of its cells, and creating it out of fuel that's not good enough to make a nuclear reactor in the first place (it at one time was, but now it's a mess of decay products and nonsense).
Reactors also take a certain amount of mass. You can't just squish two tiny microgram particles together and hope to get anything going.