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Chernobyl Fungus Appears to Have Evolved an Incredible Ability
(www.sciencealert.com)
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That's where it seems really cool to me. If we have nuclear spacecraft or even just passive cosmic radiation exposure, what's otherwise a waste/threat could become a factory. Reinforcing the hull with a regenerative radiation shield, genetically engineering it like E. coli to biosynthesise needed compounds, mass producing it as food for something we can eat- it'd be so useful to have something like that in space where you're surrounded by energy you can't use.
Also, it might be possible to engineer life forms that can actually survive and even thrive in space.
The USS isn't that far out in space; it's in LEO, well within the Earth's magnetic field, and therefore protected from most cosmic radiation. But not all.
That doesn't make the experiment invalid, just the phrasing inaccurate.
What if radiation eating fungi was amongst the first life on earth