The Chernobyl exclusion zone may be off-limits to humans, but that doesn't mean every form of life finds the conditions inhospitable.
  • iocase@lemmy.zipEnglish
    351·
    1 day ago

    can we stop using the word quietly!? I am so quietly sick of hearing the word quietly in every god damn sentence I see

    • Random_Character_A@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      14 hours ago

      So it’s like last of us, but instead of making everyone a zombie, it makes everyone an drooing asshole with the goal of making the entire planet a radiated nuclear wasteland.

      My god, we’ve been blaming social media for that. We are doomed! AI threat was just a diversion.

  • Denixen@feddit.nuEnglish
    993·
    2 days ago

    According to the article there exists no evidence that it actually synthesis energy from the radiation. The title is a flat out lie. It is a hypothesis with zero evidence.

    Also, it claims melanin that makes it dark, like our skin, is part of the synthesis, but an easier explanation is that it is there to protect against radiation, just like how melanin in our skin protects us from solar radiation.

    The whole idea of “radio-synthesis” is pseudoscientific bullshit with nothing to back it up.

    • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      15 hours ago

      I disagree - there’s a massive corpus of science fiction behind it. Protomolecule!!

    • nialv7@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      1 day ago

      it’s a hypothesis… making hypotheses and verifying them is how science progresses. you can’t dismiss every single unproven hypotheses as pseudoscience. that is in fact, unscientific.

      on the other hand, i am tired of media sensationalising as well…

      • HollowNaught@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        16 hours ago

        The bigger problem here is that the paper is stating an (as of currently) unsupported hypothesis as a definitive fact

    • scratchee@feddit.ukEnglish
      8·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, and not like it needs to eat radiation to be successful, all it has to do is survive in a place where everything else dies, and suddenly it has no competitors or predators, and is free to grow explosively.

  • NarrativeBear@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    2 days ago

    I wonder if theres a possibility to line a spaceship haul with this stuff to protect from cosmic radiation.

    • Zonetrooper@lemmy.worldEnglish
      45·
      2 days ago

      It’s an interesting thought, but according to the article, it’s not even clear that the fungus is absorbing radiation or befitting from radiation. Actual photosynthesis-via-radiation hasn’t been demonstrated; it might simply be taking advantage of the absence of other species due to high radiation, or the radiation is triggering a stress response.

      Beyond that, I’m not sure this fungus would have a better protection-per-ton rating than, say, water (which is an astoundingly good radiation shield). But, it might point us towards ways of developing plants which are radiation-tolerant, theoretically opening a path to growing food in orbital or lunar-surface environments.