Chernobyl Fungus Feeds On Radiation (2007)

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070422222547data_trunc_sys.shtml

by skennedy • 13 years ago

99 53 13 years ago

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Zikes• 13 years ago

(2007)

Very interesting, though. Just not very new.

vanderZwan• 13 years ago

Yes, I remembered hearing about it back then. But this does make me wonder if anything new has been found out about how it works. A quick wikipedia/google scholar suggests it hasn't, sadly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus

ben1040• 13 years ago

This reminds me of the fungus you see growing on the sides of distillery facilities (if you ever go through bourbon country in Kentucky, all the whisky aging warehouses are covered in the stuff). Instead of radiation, they thrive on ethanol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudoinia_compniacensis

sp332• 13 years ago

If you're bored and want a story about it: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/05/ff_angelsshare/all/1

xacaxulu• 13 years ago

I hope this could be cultivated and embedded around sites in Japan.

civilian• 13 years ago

So, radiation is a big risk factor in sending astronauts to Mars and around the solar system.

What if we could genetically engineer ourselves to use this melanin pathway for ourselves?

We wouldn't use energy from radiation in the fungi-melanin pathway (although we could), but it could be good to make our bodies recognize that a radiation storm is happening and that could trigger biochemical changes in our bodies. Either to become more radiation proof (hide yo' DNA in chromatin) or take some radiation-resilient actions (heavily increase the reproduction of cells in our gut lining).

This isn't a very realistic idea, just a sci-fi thing. We have a hundred years of ethics and technology to accomplish before this would be realistic.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

>So, radiation is a big risk factor in sending astronauts to Mars and around the solar system. >What if we could genetically engineer ourselves to use this melanin pathway for ourselves?

I had a friend in high school who was really good at biology and wanted to pursue a career in genetics.

I asked him why and he said he wanted to design humans that have tiger claws.

I think his dream is more realistic than what you suggest. :)

Houshalter2• 13 years ago

We already have melanin in our skin to block radiation though, don't we?

jlgreco4• 13 years ago

From what I understand of this, the fungus basically "eats" radiation in the sense that plants eat sunlight, but that only prevents the radiation from damaging the fungus to the extent that the radiation hits the melanin instead of hitting the DNA or whatever.

So if you made a human that did this, you would have a human that could refrain from eating much food for energy and instead choose to hang out in a nuclear reactor (they would still need to eat to take in nutrients, but would need fewer calories I guess?) ...but they'd also still get radiation poisoning / cancer / etc.

Also, it isn't clear to me how these could be used to "clean up" messes anymore than sunbathers could clean up the sun. It seems they just absorb gamma rays, but nothing about them doing that should make that material decay faster... Maybe the idea is that they intake the radioactive particles and consolidate them so that cleanup then entails finding the fungus (which is presumably easier to visually locate) and scooping it all up? Maybe you could engineer the fungus to also bioluminescence strongly to aid in this.

fragsworth• 13 years ago

Likelihood of cancer may be related to the general chance of reproductive mutation, and the chance of reproductive mutation is also likely to be something that changes through evolution.

If you have a species in a high-radiation environment, is it not possible that it evolves to have fewer reproductive mutations in general - and therefore lower chance of cancer?

VLM5• 13 years ago

"So if you made a human that did this, you would have a human that could refrain from eating much food for energy and instead choose to hang out in a nuclear reactor"

There may also be a surface area to volume argument that radiation could support a 200 pound pile of fungi, but only as long as the average thickness of fungus (or human) is less than 1/4 inch for maximum adsorption rate.

Also specific power per gram of fungi is probably pretty low compared to my leg muscles.

It would probably be more efficient to use the reactor to generate (eventually) visible light and use that and good old chlorophyll although that runs into the surface area/volume thing again where extensive past discussion shows all it really does is slow down starvation a couple percent. Chlorophyll is ridiculously inefficient.

e12e• 13 years ago

Sounds a lot like what Nancy Kress explored in Beggars Ride[1]:

"Miranda Sharifi changed this by creating the "Change syringe," a slim black injection that rebuilt the human body to be photosynthetic, able to absorb nutrients from any adjacent biological matter (dirt, grass, clothes, etc.), and resistant against disease, infection, foreign matter and casual injury. Lying on the ground in the sun for half an hour is sufficient "food" for any Changed individual."

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_Ride

hcarvalhoalves• 13 years ago

What if we could genetically engineer ourselves to use this melanin pathway for ourselves?

I can see this being totally feasible, more than the other approach, which would be to engineer ourselves to fix our own DNA:

http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/dis...

hammock• 13 years ago

You might be surprised. Genetic engineering of our bodies is not necessary to take advantage of melanin's UV absorbent, antioxidant and radical scavenging properties. There have been a couple of "melanin" pills developed to that end. Of course they don't create energy for the body, though. They have also found it difficult to achieve final regulatory approval.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afamelanotide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II

mileszim4• 13 years ago

This is a very cool fungus, I'm glad this was posted! The trickery of its survival comes from its use of melanin, specifically pheomelanin. Basically what happens is when ionizing radiation strikes pheomelanin, an incident electron is generated because of something known as the Compton effect (think photoelectric effect but at really high energy). Somehow, pheomelanin is able to strip down the energy of the electron until it is no longer capable of acting as a free radical and destroying surrounding matter. Unfortunately, that mechanism is still unknown, hopefully with the development of higher resolution microscopes we can get a more thorough understanding of the molecular structure.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

So following up later papers that cite the original [1] doesn't seem like this has gone very far. A number of papers collecting extremofile exemplars, and a few thinking about energy sources. But nothing on 'space food', 'radioactive remediation', or analysis of the energy source in humans. Sigh.

[1] http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=14704617567455474393...

mileszim4• 13 years ago

The problem is that the active molecule itself has a complex structure, and it is very hard to get a high-resolution image of even one of its structures (melanin can be folded in lots of ways). There's some potential for better imaging with fairly recent discoveries in partial-wavelength resolution microscopy using weak-measurement, but it's still a new technology. Melanin's mechanism for absorbing ionizing radiation, if understood, will definitely open up major applications for a perfected, synthesized solution.

Houshalter2• 13 years ago

This isn't really "new" but still pretty interesting.

EDIT: Title changed.

TrainedMonkey• 13 years ago

I am pretty sure I've heard something about Japanese wanting to try radiation "eating" fungi at Chernobyl ago in order to decontaminate the area almost a decade ago.

alephnil• 13 years ago

The fungi can't break down radiation, no known method can do that(1), and probably not even collect it. The amount of radioactivity is unchanged regardless of the presence of these fungi. They only use the radiation that is there as an energy source.

(1) Bombarding with neutrons or high energy charged particles may change the amount of radioactivity. Also, positron-emitting nucleotides can have slightly faster halflife at very low temperatures. None of these methods are available for the fungi.

mileszim4• 13 years ago

Melanin has about a 30% absorption rate of ionizing radiation in the gamma spectrum, and remains stable (not oxidized in the traditional rate) while producing a current. The fungus is able to produce an acidic fuel source from the current that it feeds off of. The fungus is definitely breaking down radiation, incredibly, but it's mechanism is very poorly understood.

VLM5• 13 years ago

You're getting downvoted which is too bad because you're talking about the right plan for the wrong reasons.

Google for the term bioaccumulation. Your body, for example, has serious problems with bioaccumulating radioactive iodine and strontium and a couple other elements. The Japanese plan was to plant fungi that looooove eating cesium and accumulating it in their fungus flesh (well, maybe it wasn't cesium, but you get the idea). Then you scrape up the radioactive, dying fungus into waste barrels and plant some more, and eventually all the bioaccumulative element is in barrels instead of dirt.

There are of course minor engineering issues like how the heck you gather the bioaccumulated plant matter without using humans who will contaminate themselves and die and/or make a bigger mess than just leaving it alone.

There is also a little engineering problem with scale... say you had a major DDT spill which thins poultry eggs killing off wild birds. Well, you could put an industrial poultry fryer farm over the DDT spill and bury the DDT contaminated eggs in the bottom of the ocean, or maybe incinerate them or something to provide cogeneration heat and electricity to run the plant... yeah... it would just take a trillion birds a billion years to clean up a major spill. Other than that minor scaling engineering problem...

kevinchen• 13 years ago

This is almost out of a Michael Crichton book. So close. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain

andrelaszlo• 13 years ago

Older news: "Exotic Underground Bacteria Thrive On Radiation Rather Than Sunlight"

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060919234956data_trunc_sy...

ealloc• 13 years ago

Interesting. Only 2 photosynthetic molecules are known so far in all branches of life, chlorophyll and rhodopsin, so the existence of another photosynthetic pathway is pretty surprising! I hope it's not another case of hype followed by debunking like for "arsenic dna" or "antideluvian dna".

The study seems to be done properly though, and hints at a possible mechanism, so maybe. I'd need a couple follow up studies of the mechanism to be convinced!

evolve2k2• 13 years ago

So the fungi essentially absorbing some of the radiation and transforming it.

Does this mean that this is positively affecting the radioactive halife of the area because the fungi are essentially living off the excesses radiation present and will help contribute to reduce the radiation levels over time?

VLM5• 13 years ago

No. Just like shining a flashlight on a traditional plant doesn't make the batteries wear out any quicker or slower.

However, every gamma it adsorbs, is, well, adsorbed. Its probably not a very good shield compared to sandwiches of iron and water, but its probably better than empty air. Perhaps in the future you could grow a reactor core using a tree. This would make a good minecraft mod.

If it were very aggressive about growth, maybe it would physically block rainwater from hitting the contaminants and running off contaminating downstream. Rainwater hitting harmless fungus and flowing away would help, a little.

evolve2k2• 13 years ago

I can't quite tell if you are trolling me, but I'll assume for the best as I am truly curious on this.

To take your analogy the torch will loose battery at the same rate but with the plants leaves receiving more light it would be less light that goes in the face of the person standing behind the plant. Do the plants absorbing radiation lead to less radiation being around to be absorbed by humans and animals instead? Maybe I am fundamentally misunderstanding something here.

GuerraEarth• 13 years ago

Funghi absorb radionuclides strongly. The reindeer and other grazers who eat lichen, etc. are all highly contaminated now. Look up radiotrophic funghi.

punkghetto• 13 years ago

Would be awesome if this could be developed as a method to decontaminate or stabilize areas affected by nuclear accidents.

plu420• 13 years ago

http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/06/black-substance-170000-cp...

A black organism that bioaccumulates radionuclides has being known of in Japan for a while.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a good or bad thing before we've studied this radioactive monster; considering how very hot it is I'll leave the studying to up someone else...

everyone• 13 years ago

Amazing, I guess its easy forget life on earth is billions of years old and extends deep into the planets crust. It has adapted to some completely different environments than what we normally associate with life.

DonGateley2• 13 years ago

"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 - ionizing radiation - to benefit the fungi containing it,"

One problem with that. Ionizing radiation is not on the electromagnetic spectrum. It's particles with rest mass.

TheEzEzz2• 13 years ago

According to the infallible Wikipedia ionizing radiation can refer to either electromagnetic radiation or massive particles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation

DonGateley2• 13 years ago

I should have looked that up, huh? :-)

Chernobyl Fungus Feeds On Radiation (2007)

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