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I don't understand the interest here. It's not like fungi are magically more effective than virtually any other mass at absorbing ionizing radiation and subatom
by MertsA 5y ago
I don't understand the interest here. It's not like fungi are magically more effective than virtually any other mass at absorbing ionizing radiation and subatomic particles. "Self-replicating" is meaningless when it needs to consume water and carbon sources to do so which on their own would probably be denser and more effective per unit volume at shielding. Chemistry has next to nothing to do with radiation shielding let alone biology.
- omginternets 5y agoI imagine this might be interesting for longer distances in which broken shielding might not be so easily replaced. In such cases, regenerating your shielding via life-support systems is a feature, not a bug.
- lumost 5y agoWhy not fly with a pre pulverized shield? There aren't many big forces on a long distance space hall and one could imagine using electrostatic forces to hold the pulverized shielding in place. No need to regrow the radiation shield then.
- omginternets 5y agoWhy not indeed. Why not investigate growing a shield as well?
- IHLayman 5y agoExcept that in general most mushrooms produce more CO2 than then consume. In fact, they’ve been researched as a possible additional variable to the CO2 budget equation: https://phys.org/news/2016-01-mushrooms-contribute-global.html https://phys.org/news/2016-01-mushrooms-contribute-global.ht.... I doubt that radiation-loving mushrooms are edible, and if they produce CO2 rather than scrub it, I can’t consider them to be part of the life-support system.
- ceejayoz 5y agoBring plants/algae?