Blog 6 - Chernobyl Fungus

I was researching a few different extremophiles and came across the Chernobyl Fungus; also known as Radiotrophic fungus. These different types of fungi, obviously, can be found in the abandoned, radioactive city of Chernobyl. They aren’t you’re typical fungi. They can actually use radioactivity as an energy source to grow, make food, and reproduce.

Arturo Casadevall began studying this fungus about 5 years ago when he saw that a robot was sent into reactor 4 in Chernobyl, “and had returned with samples of black, melanin-rich fungi that were growing on the ruined reactor’s walls.” He immediately thought that these fungi could in fact be using the radiation as an energy source.

After Casadevalls peak of interest in this fungus, he performed a variety of tests with a few different types of fungi. They were exposed to different levels of radiation that were about 500 times higher than the radiation around us every day. The results proved that they do, in fact, use radiation as an energy source. The tested fungi grew faster when exposed to radiation.

"Just as the pigment chlorophyll converts sunlight into chemical energy that allows green plants to live and grow, our research suggests that melanin can use a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum - ionizing radiation - to benefit the fungi containing it," said co-researcher Ekaterina Dadachova.

It is amazing to see that even in such an extreme environment, there are still microorganisms able to live and strive. I had no idea that certain microbes could live, and grow using radiation as their energy source.