Sounds like one of those magic mushroom/ergot kinds of breakthrough ideas. I'd always figured that Leila the Soviet dog provided the origin of the idea of a dog driving a car.
Posted on 11/14/2021 10:58:04 AM PST by BenLurkin
Cladosporium sphaerospermum could form a living shield around astronauts in space.
The fungus not only blocks radiation but actually uses it to grow, through a process call radiosynthesis: It pulls energy from radiation, just as most plants pull energy from sunlight via photosynthesis.
These radiation-loving fungi survive on Earth in extreme places, like the site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.
In space, they do just as well. In 2019, researchers flew some of the fungi to the ISS, watching how it grew over a period of 30 days, and measuring the amount of radiation that passed through it, as compared to a control sample with no fungi.
The experiment showed that radiation levels beneath a 1.7-millimeter-thick (0.07 inches) bed of fungus were about 2.17 percent lower than the control.
Not only that, but the fungus grew about 21 percent faster than it does on Earth, meaning that the fungi's ability to act as a protective shield for astronauts could actually grow more robust the longer a mission lasts.
It's too early to get overly excited about the practical applications of this fungus in space travel. The team estimates that on Mars, to bring radiation levels down to Earth-like conditions, a habitat would need to be covered with a 2.3-meter-thick (7.5 feet) layer of radiosynthesizing fungi.
The same effect could be achieved by burying the habitat beneath 3 meters of Martian dirt (regolith). Still, the potential for biological solutions to what are often considered engineering challenges is a unique approach and may prove fruitful.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...
But does it taste good with scrambled eggs?
In 2019, researchers flew some of the fungi to the ISS, watching how it grew over a period of 30 days
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Your tax dollars at work. There is no limit to the things government will spend money on to study. Its all about science don’t cha know.
or put their Number 2 in plastic bags and store it in the walls of the spacecraft
One more reason to grow veggies in space. It may keep the weight down for background radiation but I don’t know if an intense shot will be stopped by fungi. A dense metallic lining like a lead or gold lining would likely be preferred for a heavy and long radiation bombardment.
Like in that terrible SciFi Hugh Laurie comedy Avenue 5 !
Provided, of course, that it doesn’t eventually mutate and devour the astronauts.
This.👍
Boy ... there could be a great episode of Futurama made with this story.
Farnsworth would be all over it.
Great just wait until it becomes self-aware.
The fungus from space. Definitely a movie there.
Now I get it, this is really where “The Andromeda Strain” came from.
5.56mm
or by using H2O as a shield as envisioned in Project Orion. Water is more useful then fungi which at best can only be eaten, unless under the extreme radiation, it mutates and eats the astronauts ...
One more reason to grow veggies in space.
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Now planed to have Covid jab preinstalled (Scientists Are Attempting to Grow Covid Vaccine-Filled Spinach, Lettuce, Edible Plants To Replace Covid Injections).
That show was unwatchable, which is a shame because his performance in House was stellar. Brilliant actually, and pretty much unparalleled in any television I know of.
How he managed to be detestable and admirable, infuriating and amusing all at the same time. Simply brilliant.
Agree about his acting. I eventually found House to be too annoying to watch. It morphed from sleuthing interesting medical puzzles (Keeping with its Sherlock Holmes inspiration !) to all about “ relationships all the time” ! Just like almost every prime time drama, a quasi-soap opera. After awhile it just got boring and predictable, so I stopped watching.
Is this the set-up for a science horror movie?
Sounds like one of those magic mushroom/ergot kinds of breakthrough ideas. I'd always figured that Leila the Soviet dog provided the origin of the idea of a dog driving a car.
The cloaking device is a fungus?
The fungus is amongst us,
but the lead is ahead.
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