Silent spring

Cosmos Magazine ^ | June 2008 | Lauren Monaghan

[forkinsocket]

Deep in the radioactive bowels of the smashed Chernobyl reactor, a strange new lifeform is blooming.

TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO, on 26 April 1986, reactor No 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in Ukraine, blew apart, spewing radioactive dust and debris far and wide.

Ever since, a 30 km 'exclusion zone' has existed around the contaminated site, accessible to those with special clearance only. It's quite easy, then, to conjure an apocalyptic vision of the area; to imagine an eerily deserted wasteland, utterly devoid of life.

But the truth is quite the opposite. The exclusion zone is teeming with wildlife of all shapes and sizes, flourishing unhindered by human interference and seemingly unfazed by the ever-present radiation. Most remarkable, however, is not the life buzzing around the site, but what's blooming inside the perilous depths of the reactor.

Sitting at the centre of the exclusion zone, the damaged reactor unit is encased in a steel and cement sarcophagus. It's a deathly tomb that plays host to about 200 tonnes of melted radioactive fuel, and is swarming with radioactive dust.

But it's also the abode of some very hardy fungi which researchers believe aren't just tolerating the severe radiation, but actually harnessing its energy to thrive.

"Our findings suggest that [the fungi] can capture the energy from radiation and transform it into other forms of energy that can be used for growth," said microbiologist Arturo Casadevall from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York, USA.

[Grammy]

It is a constant battle to keep the woods from reclaiming our house. I don’t buy this “fragile earth” stuff any more. Between the moss and poison ivy and the squirrels and the bugs, I am in constant battle. Oh, and don’t forget the woodpeckers!

[gleeaikin]

I am wondering if melanoma is such a dangerous cancer because the melanin facilitates the overgrowth of cancerous tissue from the sun’s radiation. Also it makes sense that fungi, one of earth’s older life forms, could survive and even thrive in radiation, as the earth was far less protected from extraterrestrial radiation at the time they evolved.