RE: TIL: Radiation Eating Fungus found at Chernobyl
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.