This is a very cool fungus, I'm glad this was posted! The trickery of its survival comes from its use of melanin, specifically pheomelanin. Basically what happe

This is a very cool fungus, I'm glad this was posted! The trickery of its survival comes from its use of melanin, specifically pheomelanin. Basically what happens is when ionizing radiation strikes pheomelanin, an incident electron is generated because of something known as the Compton effect (think photoelectric effect but at really high energy). Somehow, pheomelanin is able to strip down the energy of the electron until it is no longer capable of acting as a free radical and destroying surrounding matter. Unfortunately, that mechanism is still unknown, hopefully with the development of higher resolution microscopes we can get a more thorough understanding of the molecular structure.