p2pnet - rss feed: Fungi has a taste for radiation
p2pnet.net OT news:- Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University researchers believe they’ve found a kind of fungi boasting an unusual talent: the ability to use radioactivity to make food and to spur their growth.
“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,” says Dr Arturo Casadevall, chair of microbiology & immunology at Einstein and senior author of the study, published in PLoS ONE
Five years ago Casadevall saw an online post which said a robot sent into the still-highly-radioactive damaged reactor at Chernobyl had returned with samples of black, melanin-rich fungi that were growing on the walls, continues Innovations Report.
“I found that very interesting and began discussing with colleagues whether these fungi might be using the radiation emissions as an energy source,” the story has Casadevall saying.
Later studies, “consistently showed that ionizing radiation significantly enhances the growth of fungi that contain melanin,” says the story, adding:
“Dr Casadevall notes that the melanin in fungi is no different chemically from the melanin in our skin. ‘It’s pure speculation but not outside the realm of possibility that melanin could be providing energy to skin cells,’ he says. ‘While it wouldn’t be enough energy to fuel a run on the beach, maybe it could help you to open an eyelid’.”
Also See:
Innovations Report - Einstein researchers’ discover ‘radiation-eating’ fungi, May 23, 2007
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