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Discovery at Chernobyl. Life thrives in a radioactive environment.

exchemist

Veteran Member
I dont believe that. The radiation is already energy
She may be right nonetheless. γ-rays are far too energetic to be captured directly in chemical systems. But there is something called Compton scattering, in which a γ-ray interacts with matter, transfers some energy to it and changes to a lower energy γ-ray. This, it seems to me, could be one way in which a chemical system could capture energy from γ-radiation without itself being irretrievably disrupted.

There would then be "waste" energy at least, in the form of the lower frequency γ-radiation that would be left.

But I speculate: nobody has completed any research on yet, it seems.
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum

Audie

Veteran Member
That's exactly what it's doing though.

No, it is not.
That does not even make sense.

I dont think you know what "radiation" in this case
even means.

Plz identify what form or radiation is involved,
and what it is "broken down" into. :D
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
I did know that there are animals and plant life that are more adapted to radiation. Years ago we read about a new breed of horses around Chernobyl for instance.

But this fungi... that's really, really cool.
Or rather, "hot", in nuclear engineer-speak........:D
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
With this being something else fungi can apparently handle and take care of, it makes me wonder if there might be some fungus out there that holds the key to solving the plastic and styrofoam pollution that plagues the Earth?
Much research is being done on microbes that can take apart polymers.
This is better than conventional recycling, which yields a degraded
plastic that is only usable when combined with virgin material.
Disassembled polymers offer building blocks with the best properties.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I did know that there are animals and plant life that are more adapted to radiation. Years ago we read about a new breed of horses around Chernobyl for instance.

But this fungi... that's really, really cool.
It brings a whole new meaning to glow in the dark mushrooms. ;0)

Aside from other extreme life forms, I think this one takes the cake in the sense that it can survive radiation which pretty much kills just about anything living for the most part. I wonder if they're going to find some kind of fungi on Mars or one of the other planets since the parameters can be expanded now giving us more places to look.
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
It brings a whole new meaning to glow in the dark mushrooms. ;0)

Aside from other extreme life forms, I think this one takes the cake in the sense that it can survive radiation which pretty much kills just about anything living for the most part. I wonder if they're going to find some kind of fungi on Mars or one of the other planets since the parameters can be expanded now giving us more places to look.
Agree. Also, since we already know that species like tardigrads can survive vacuum and go into hibernation without water, life can take on so many forms. Also, there's a bacteria (I think it was) that can live in ice.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
I heard a marine biologist say it: Life wants to happen.
Jeremy England of MIT had a speculative hypothesis some years ago that life arises because it is the most effective generator of entropy there is. He envisaged that physics will always seek out, via what is in effect a thermodynamic form of natural selection, a way to "run down" energy as fast as possible, and that life provides a good route for that. I don't know became of that idea but it struck me as quite a good one.
 

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
Jeremy England of MIT had a speculative hypothesis some years ago that life arises because it is the most effective generator of entropy there is. He envisaged that physics will always seek out, via what is in effect a thermodynamic form of natural selection, a way to "run down" energy as fast as possible, and that life provides a good route for that. I don't know became of that idea but it struck me as quite a good one.
Sounds familiar. I think I know who you're thinking of, but can't remember his name.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Plz identify what form or radiation is involved,
and what it is "broken down" into
From the article:
However in fungi, it reportedly absorbed radiation and converted it into some type of chemical energy for growth.
I can't give details it doesn't, but it does say it's absorbing the radiation and using it for its own biological functions.
Very intriguing, anyway - and I suppose invites a further question, of possible relevance to life on the early Earth. Is this mechanism of energy capture a product of evolution at Chernobyl, or was the capability already there, latent within the fungi, from their long-distant ancestors on the early Earth?
It touched on that in the article, that it's probably been around for a while to some extent.
In a 2008 paper, Ekaterina Dadachova, then of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, noted that the fungi attracted to radiation are unlikely to be the first examples of their kind.

"Large quantities of highly melanized fungal spores have been found in early Cretaceous period deposits when many species of animals and plants died out. This period coincides with Earth’s crossing the “magnetic zero” resulting in the loss of its “shield” against cosmic radiation," the paper's introduction states.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
From the article:

I can't give details it doesn't, but it does say it's absorbing the radiation and using it for its own biological functions.

It touched on that in the article, that it's probably been around for a while to some extent.

Plants absorb radiation from the sun but they do not break it down.

But never mind, I am no physicist but I am tiresome.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Jeremy England of MIT had a speculative hypothesis some years ago that life arises because it is the most effective generator of entropy there is. He envisaged that physics will always seek out, via what is in effect a thermodynamic form of natural selection, a way to "run down" energy as fast as possible, and that life provides a good route for that. I don't know became of that idea but it struck me as quite a good one.
It sounds like he's imbuing physics with a goal in mind (as it were).
As I see it, life just happens as an emergent property of the chemistry.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Plants absorb radiation from the sun but they do not break it down.

But never mind, I am no physicist but I am tiresome.
It doesn't say what the waste material is. Which is a very big question. It's taking it in, but then what? Even our own waste is consider toxic and hazardous. But, some fungi can filter all that out, and decompose our toxic bodies into something clean for the environment. So it's hard telling. It could be like some fungi that leave a form of what they take in.
It's all a question of what exactly is the fungi doing with it and what is the waste after it's done?
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
It sounds like he's imbuing physics with a goal in mind (as it were).
As I see it, life just happens as an emergent property of the chemistry.
From the article:

I can't give details it doesn't, but it does say it's absorbing the radiation and using it for its own biological functions.

It touched on that in the article, that it's probably been around for a while to some extent.
Aha. That is interesting, indeed.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
It sounds like he's imbuing physics with a goal in mind (as it were).
As I see it, life just happens as an emergent property of the chemistry.

I don't think it's a goal exactly. I think his idea is that as entropy has a tendency to increase (any spontaneous process occurs with a net increase in entropy), so systems that enable that to happen may be thermodynamically favoured.

But, as I say, I have heard no more about this idea for some years now, so maybe it was just a conjecture that led nowhere.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I don't think it's a goal exactly. I think his idea is that as entropy has a tendency to increase (any spontaneous process occurs with a net increase in entropy), so systems that enable that to happen may be thermodynamically favoured.
Entropy increases whenever anything macroscopic happens.
Life is among the things which happen.
 
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