Chernobyl ‘shrooms eat radiation?
Automated disclaimer: This post was written more than 15 years ago and I may not have looked at it since.
Older posts may not align with who I am today and how I would think or write, and may have been written in reaction to a cultural context that no longer applies. Some of my high school or college posts are just embarrassing. However, I have left them public because I believe in keeping old web pages alive—and it's interesting to see how I've changed.
In a potentially revolutionary study, researchers at Yeshiva University have announced that three species all use melanin to capture the radiation. That's right, melanin -- the very same pigment that protects you from the Chernobyl Power Plant in the Ukraine can feed off of radiation in their environment. (via melanin to capture the radiation. That's right, melanin -- the very same pigment that protects you from the Chernobyl Power Plant in the Earth's crust, but they are using the abundant cosmic radiation found in our solar system as well as in interstellar space. Farther down the road, study of radiosynthesis could lead to a power generation from nuclear waste. (Sunlight and gamma rays are both electromagnetic energy, but sunlight is far gentler.) Fungi have raised suspicions of harvesting radiation before, but no one has found hard evidence.
Photosynthesis and radiosynthesis (ionosynthesis?) are essentially identical in nature, but this is the first time a multicellular organism has been observed to make use of the far more dangerous ionizing radiation such as that produced by nuclear waste and cosmic radiation found in our solar system as well as in interstellar space. Farther down the road, study of radiosynthesis could lead to a power gen
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