Mars-bound fungus found in Chernobyl could shield astronauts from radiation in space

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/mars-bound-fungus-found-chernobyl-154553924.html

7 Comments

  1. What kind of horseshit is that again? It doesn’t shield anything significantly better than any other organic material. It just happens to be able to use the energy of the radiation it absorbs.

  2. It’s cool that it can use radiation energy to grow, but it’s not going to absorb more radiation than an equivalent mass of polyethylene shielding. 

    High energy radiation doesn’t stop because something is using it. Consider a fake plant leaf made of thin green plastic and a real plant leaf. While the real plant uses the photons to create energy to grow, and that same energy turns to heat in the plastic leaf, both block the same amount of light. 

  3. Now where have I read about something like this before …

    It sounds pretty amazing, amazing, amazing if true.

  4. thepriceisright__ on

    > When the *radiation was 1.7 millimetres thick*, it shrank the radiation recorded on sensors underneath the petri dish by 2 per cent, the study found.

    What in the poorly edited AI slop is this?

  5. waiting4singularity on

    the measured absorption rate on iss and in terrestrical laboratories is

    a) too low to become an exclusive rads shield even in a sheet with a meter thickness because
    b) as naturaly growing it is reliant on conditions and has varying melanin content per square size.

    further experiments with melanin enriched compounds indicate its a suitable additional shielding add-on, but it can not be standalone protection.