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Major biological discovery inside the Chernobyl reactor??

2007-09-22 13:33:30

There has been an exciting new biological discovery inside the tomb of the

Chernobyl reactor. Like out of some B-grade sci fi movie, a robot sent into the

reactor discovered a thick coat of black slime growing on the walls. Since it

is highly radioactive in there, scientists didn t expect to find anything

living, let alone thriving. The robot was instructed to obtain samples of the

slime, which it did, and upon examination the slime was even more amazing than

was thought at first glance.

This slime, a collection of several fungi actually, was more than just

surviving in a radioactive environment, it was actually using gamma radiation

as a food source. Samples of these fungi grew significantly faster when exposed

to gamma radiation at 500 times the normal background radiation level. The

fungi appear to use melanin, a chemical found in human skin as well, in the

same fashion as plants use chlorophyll. That is to say, the melanin molecule

gets struck by a gamma ray and its chemistry is altered. This is an amazing

discovery, no one had even suspected that something like this was possible.

Aside from its novelty value, this discovery leads to some interesting

speculation and potential research. Humans have melanin molecules in their skin

cells, does this mean that humans are getting some of their energy from

radiation? This also implies there could be organisms living in space where

ionizing radiation is plentiful. I ve always been a big panspermia proponent,

the idea that life did not originate on Earth but is actually common in the

cosmos. Organisms that can live in space certainly gives more credence to this

idea.

Possibly this could also be used to create plants or mushrooms that could grow

in space, serving as a food source for space travellers. Maybe these fungi

could be modified and used somehow to clean up radiation contaminated

environments. There s quite a few of those, in fact the disposal of radioactive

waste is still a huge and unsolved problem. Now the fungi couldn t actually eat

the radioactive isotopes, I m not saying that, but if they can live in

radioactive environments they might be used to somehow scour out or concentrate

the radioactive isotopes in such a way as to facilitate their clean up.

Imagine, there s fallout from a nuclear accident and what do the guys in suits

do? They show up, spray mushroom spores over everything, and a few weeks later

the mushrooms are harvested and disposed of while the contaminated area is now

radiation free. It would certainly be useful, the picture at the top shows the

still abandoned town of Priyat, Ukraine. It was built to house the workers at

the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and was evacuated within hours of the

accident.

An excellent story about the Chernobyl disaster and Pripyat is at the Ghost

Town link. Just be aware that, no, Elana didn t actually ride her motorcycle

through the radiation contaminated zone, that was poetic license on her part.

(Motorcycle enthusiasts have motorcycled across Europe hoping to duplicate her

tour, only to be told by the guards that that motorcycles are not allowed in

the contaminated zone.) The pictures and descriptions are accurate though, some

of the images are incredibly poignant. Just think, a whole town where the

inhabitants fled without warning, leaving all of their possessions behind.

Fortunately the Chernobyl reactor was an old and unsafe design, only one other

reactor in the world was built the same way. It was right here in Berkeley, a

research reactor built on campus in the fifties. It was sagely decided to

quietly shut it down after Chernobyl; while it couldn t have had an accident on

the scale of Chernobyl, the locals were a little concerned anyhow. In fact it

was a block away from my favourite burrito place, yikes.

(The above image was released into the public domain by its author. Credit:

Jason Minshull.)