Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #mycomelioration, aggregated by home.social.
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Metabolic Conversion: They didn't just survive the radiation; they treated it like sunlight. They converted the gamma radiation into chemical energy to grow.
The Lesson: It’s a profound example of "Biological Optimization." Engineering fails because it is rigid; fungi succeed because they are adaptive, regenerative, and powered by the very thing that destroys technology.
Did you know that fungi grow inside the melted Chernobyl reactor?
The fact that fungi thrived where German robotics—the pinnacle of 1980s engineering—literally fried is the ultimate proof of their biological seniority.
#Radiotrophic Growth: While the robots suffered from ionizing radiation destroying their circuitry, the fungi (Cryptococcus neoformans) used melanin (the same pigment in human skin) to perform #radiosynthesis.