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RE: TIL: Radiation Eating Fungus found at Chernobyl
I remember reading this the other day and I said to myself, "Life really can develop anywhere and can survive on anything". Makes you wonder how many different life forms are out there in the universe, doesn't it?
I am dubious whether high levels of radiation are survivable but lower levels, and with water around, clearly it can be. Paul stamets wrote about how there is many fungi that help sequester and neutralise radionucleides. I am sure there is organisms that can clean up anything. There must be, because otherwise the planet would still be dirty on the outside. Biochemistry research has found many useful products can be made from toxic materials using bacteria and fungi.
Oh I totally agree. While we may not have what we normally think of in the sense of life forms in more extreme places (such as trees and insects above certain altitudes, fish in deep water, etc.) the more microscopic life forms always seem to find some way to adapt and make use of these environments (there being a huge plus of little competition to deal with.)
I've even read of bacteria that are able to survive the rigors of outer space such as extremely low pressures, temperatures and high radiation. Life in general is quite amazing and resilient where it almost always seems to find some way to adapt to sustain itself even in the most bizarre ways. I'll be shocked if we don't start seeing more research into these types of extremophiles as time goes on, probably seeing it move into more advanced gene splicing experiments (which I'm still open to seeing and a good and/or bad thing.)
Yeah, you must have heard of Tardigrades. They can survive in space and can even survive radiation. They are like the toughest organisms there are! Nature's perfection manifested.
They've definitely crossed my path, admittedly it's been a while since specifically looking back at them. I will say that if more things looked that cute under the microscope we would probably get more public attention in these areas! Lol. I hadn't come across this video on them before, felt it was worth sharing.