What If We Sent Radioactive Fungi To Space?

Melanin, for the win (to Martians).

Over 18 months ago, it had been nearly 30 years since active life was discovered in and around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

For an area that has been virtually inhospitable to flora and fauna for 35 years, any sightings of steady growth would be received as unprecedented.

The events of Chernobyl were no ordinary mishap. This would be the one incident of spilled milk that could never be wiped clean. For centuries to come, the area will remain a fairly desolate wasteland with little promise of restoration or repatriation.

However, over the subsequent years and decades, drifting away from the dread of that day, optimistic seeds are yet planted in the midst of terminal decay.

Throughout Pryp’yat’, there have been numerous spottings of plant life showing signs of normal progression. Unlike that which was beginning to become standard as far as halted growth.

Here, the most interesting thing to note is how gamma radiation expresses a link to aging. When a human, animal or plant is exposed to gamma radiation, the effects are instantaneous. A killer that is impossible to evade or defeat as it does not take up physical space nor is it visible to the naked eye.

Radiation conforms to any element and state of matter. It can dissolve into water, permeate through air, absorb through food and other solid materials.

Any biological organism subjected to its presence does not stand a chance. It is the one variation of pathology whose reputation is far more formidable than cancer, when considered as a distinct entity, detached from the identity of a causal factor.

The latter, in many cases, can ultimately be treated and cured.

Radiation gives little time for action. Its mimicry of the one natural disease that unites all living things is immaculate in form and function. The properties of radioactive components possess the unique ability to accelerate age.

Thereby, it is both an enemy and ally of time.

The evidence of its alliance is as silent as its path of destruction.

Gamma radiation, unlike its less invasive predecessors, Alpha and Beta, yields to no security of protective layering. Whereas Alpha and Beta radiation can be deflected or reduced in impact by layers such as clothing, Gamma rays are able to penetrate through any substance, regardless of weight or density.

The significance of radiation to aging is in the renewal of time for plant cultivation. Even in areas like the infamous Red Forest, where plant life has been frozen in time, the considerable resilience of flora against radiation cannot be ignored. It is remarkable to witness blight even through the mist of this transparent yet undetectable force.

The forest itself will be uninhabitable for centuries to millennia. It is unknown if the region will ever resume invitation to humans and most animals or insects.

However, it is the message that the forest sends. A reminder of what we know regarding evolution. Ipso facto, the possibilities are endless when life shows promise of adapting.

Humans may never recover from the long-term, devastating effects of radiation poisoning, but, if nothing else, it teaches us that nature will always prevail. While some forms of plant life will perish upon exposure, others will mutate, taking on a more advanced, if not unexpected, appearance.

The soil imbibes the radiation and a variation of natural selection occurs until only the most durable roots ensure survival. Questions begin to fertilise, tracing our steps back to the root of origin.

Deliberating on matters of concern involving the harvest and potential utility of peculiar fungi that imbibes alpha, beta and gamma radiation concentrated at the nuclear hotspot.

It should be clear that nuclear energy is not the safest venture for humanity. Throughout the course of history, a lion’s share of misuse has been documented. The final verdict should be deeming the use of nuclear energy as too unstable for activity on Earth.

But, if not here, then where?

Somewhere, far from the exosphere, teeming with kindred biota to complement the malign yet uniquely salubrious life of radioactive isotopes.

Although abstract and less common to acknowledge, it should be noted that life, itself, may be considered as the etymology of cancer, and that cancer is simply the metastasis of aging.

A bold, unaccountable claim to record in medical publications and scientific magazines, yet still worth committing to theory and creative teaching.

It is a simple fact of existence that life is finite. But, breaking life down to its microscopic components allows us to witness the complex processes that cause cells to simplify.

One phenomenon in particular supports the acceleration of age, characterised by diminishing cell count.

The Hayflick Limit denotes a limit to the average rate of cell regeneration throughout the body. During a normal life cycle, this typically occurs during the latter stages. However, when certain abnormal variables become influential, acceleration can manifest prematurely.

Often, this may be presented through various carcinogens or congenital disorders such as Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome which is known for rapidly aging its victims, predominantly affecting children.

If we compare Earth to space, the magnitude of difference is incalculable. Countless experiences with radiation, within the terrene of our orbiting mass of rock and water, have generated little success in the realm of safe handling.

From Hiroshima to Nagasaki to Fukushima to numerous bioweapons engineered and used throughout the First and Second World War, evolving to more deadly tactics during the conflict of Vietnam, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria as well as many more covert methods of terrorist attacks ordered by American military, nuclear energy’s efficacy is only laudable for efforts of destruction.

In a way, its purpose is correct and commendable through the art of combat with assured, perfect efficiency for eliminating the opposition.

However, our research and endeavours for nuclear energy should only ever have been focused towards the potential for nuclear products being manufactured and/or recycled as a clean, viable energy source.

Much to our dismay, we arrive at a sinuous crossroads of complications where the vehicles are driven by confounding variables.

Radiation is simply not an ally to carbon-based lifeforms. Granted, our exposure is omnipresent, yet in such negligible doses as to be filtered by the air, or adapted to by the body, given this paltry percentage.

In space, there is more promise for efforts of research and development. Virtually everything beyond the exit layer of Earth is scattered with naturally occurring Gamma radiation.

In this regard, Earth is sui generis in being the only planet in the Solar System that is fit to occupy carbon-based lifeforms and other organic compounds that would collapse if crossing the atmospheric bounds of other planetary bodies.

Earth is unique in that its richest, albeit not evident, source of gas is oxygen, enabling organic life to subsist.

In contrast, the one, if not only, definitive barrier preventing organic life from comfortable relocation is the absence of protection in the atmospheric layers of other planets.

On Mars, the air is approximately 96% carbon dioxide, compared to 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen on Earth. This is 75.3% more nitrogen than that of Mars’ nitrogen constitution (2.7%).

For now, it is safe to surmise that radiation can thrive anywhere except Earth. The only terrestrial planet that shows promise for accommodating the coexistence of both organic matter and radioactivity, that we possess knowledge of, is The Red Planet.

How is this information relevant to Chernobyl and the fungi growing there?

Claiming a history of 30 years, with steady continuity, mycology reports present fungal growth of a radiotrophic nature.

The suffix of ‘-trophic’ is derived from Greek ‘trophos’, meaning “one who nourishes or is nourished”.

In this case, the fungi is being nourished by radiation while radiation provides nourishment via radiosynthesis where energy is collected and metabolised from ionising particles.

The exclusive properties of this fungi, which has been observed with continuous growth dating as far back as 1991, five years after the incident, are evinced by absorption of radiation.

This fungus is subsisting on radiation, all the while indifferent to its negative effects.

As radiation is discussed with regularity to be a confirmed energy source for this organic matter, researchers from the ilk of NASA et al. have since found use as additional protection for astronauts.

At present, the utility is more potential than official addition.

Nevertheless, the predictions of advantage are positive for using radiotrophic fungi as shielding against radiation.

Space exploration hence projects them as promising candidates, as well as vehicles of exodus for radiation from Earthly inhabitants.

Perhaps, through the bowels of the Milky Way, we may find better luck, if not life, sending shrooms over simians.

Probability may increase if the wearer of fur does not live up to the name of Snow White.