Didn’t know what specific flair this called for. I saw some post on fb, which I never taking at face value, but I also do not have the knowledge to dispute it or confirm it. I did a bit of research myself, but didn’t find the answers I was looking for. All I managed to find, or think I learned, is that it just thrives in radiation but isn’t decreasing it. Maybe not? Help? lol
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The fungus absorbs radiation, but that radiation would only last for a very tiny fraction of a second anyways. Radiation does not exist for very long. The long-lived stuff is radioactive material, and it will decay at its natural pace no matter what, producing radiation as it goes. This is not removed by the fungus.
If you are asking whether it is preventing the radioactive material from emitting radiation, then no. The fungus can’t change how radioactive its surroundings are. Even if it absorbed the radioactive material, it wouldn’t stop it from emitting radiation. (The fungus could absorb some of the radiation, but so can any other material.)
From what I’ve read (e.g. this article in [The Science News](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dark-power-pigment-seems-put-radiation-good-use)), the fungus seems to grow faster in the radiation field, which is surprising and counterintuitive. Gamma radiation is destructive to living tissue; the fungus can’t extract energy directly from the gamma rays. (This is mostly true: after attenuating the gamma rays enough, they could be low-energy enough to absorb. Of course, other plants and fungi could do the same thing, although maybe not as effectively, or in the same energy ranges.)
However, not all living things react to damage the same way. It’s possible that the fungus reacts to damage by increasing the melanin it produces, or by producing a different variety of melanin. Scientists think that the melanin in the fungus helps it, perhaps by increasing its ability to absorb nutrients.
I don’t think anybody understands what is happening completely, but it is really interesting.
No, it just can live where other life cannot, and use chemicals produced by radioactive decays as food.
Only nuclear reactions can change the radioactivity of things (apart from a few special cases not relevant here), and life doesn’t do any nuclear reactions.
Radiotrophic fungi use radiation to grow by converting it into energy.
Think of sunlight, which is also a type of radiation we are more familiar with.
A plant needs sunlight to grow and can turn it into energy. A human can turn sunlight into vit D but we don’t turn it into energy.
It doesn’t mean we don’t absorb sunlight, we just can’t use it as well as plants. If you stay in sunlight for too long you might get sunburned and even die.
Radioactive radiation is similar. The fungi are to some degree resistant to “sunburn” from radioactive radiation and can use it instead of sunlight to make energy.
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