[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] - Fungi was found sprouting up the walls of abandoned gamma-flooded reactor
- Fungi absorbs harmful radiation and converts it into potentially useful energy
- Scientists believe it could be used like radiation 'sun block' if turned to drug form
A strand of fungi which spawned inside the Chernobyl nuclear reactor and eats radiation could allow humans to insulate against deadly rays.
In 1991, five years after the disaster which rocked Ukraine, the black fungi was found sprouting up the walls of the abandoned reactor which had been flooded with gamma.
Baffled how it managed to survive the extreme conditions, scientists examined the microorganism - and were even more excited with their findings.
In addition to not perishing, they discovered that the fungi actually grows towards the radiation, as if attracted to it.
In the same way in which plants convert carbon dioxide and chlorophyll into oxygen and glucose via photosynthesis, the fungi sapped up deadly rays which allowed it to produce energy.
This process - hailed radiosynthesis - has captured the attention of scientists because of its potentially revolutionary implications.
Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a research scientist at NASA who is leading the experiments on the Cryptococcus neoformans fungi, believes that by extracting its radiation-absorbing power and manufacturing it in drug form, it could be used as a 'sun block' against toxic rays. |