Shafaqna Science: The Chernobyl exclusion zone may be off-limits to humans, but ever since the Unit Four reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded nearly 40 years ago, other forms of life have not only moved in but survived, adapted, and appeared to thrive.
Part of that may be the lack of humans… but for one organism, at least, the ionizing radiation lingering inside the reactor’s surrounding structures may be an advantage.
There, clinging to the interior walls of one of the most radioactive buildings on Earth, scientists have found a strange black fungus curiously living its best life.
Related: Worms at Chernobyl Appear Mysteriously Unscathed by Radiation
That fungus is called Cladosporium sphaerospermum, and some scientists think its dark pigment – melanin – may allow it to harness ionizing radiation through a process similar to the way plants harness light for photosynthesis. This proposed mechanism is even referred to as radiosynthesis.
But here’s the really funky thing about C. sphaerospermum: Although scientists have shown that the fungus flourishes in the presence of ionizing radiation, no one has been able to pin down how or why. Radiosynthesis is a theory, one that’s difficult to prove.
The mystery began back in the late 1990s, when a team led by microbiologist Nelli Zhdanova of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences embarked on a field survey in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to find out what life, if any, could be found in the shelter surrounding the ruined reactor.
There, they were stunned to find a whole community of fungi, documenting an astonishing 37 species. Notably, these organisms tended to be dark-hued to black, rich with the pigment melanin.
C. sphaerospermum dominated the samples, while also demonstrating some of the highest levels of radioactive contamination.
As surprising as the discovery was, what happened next deepened the intrigue.
Radiopharmacologist Ekaterina Dadachova and immunologist Arturo Casadevall — both with posts at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the US – led a team of scientists that found exposing C. sphaerospermum to ionizing radiation doesn’t harm the fungus the way it would other organisms.
Ionizing radiation describes emissions of particles powerful enough to knock electrons from their atoms, turning them into their ionic forms.
That sounds pretty benign on paper, but in practice, ionization can break apart molecules, interfering with biochemical reactions and even shredding DNA. None of that is a good time for a human, although it can be exploited to destroy cancer cells, which are particularly vulnerable to its effects.