Fungi, Our Costant Companions

[HopAlongBunny]

We live with a lot of fellow-travellers; even in outer space.
It turns out, fungi can be be interstellar hitchhikers as well.

http://www.agenciasinc.es/en/News/Antarctic-fungi-survive-Martian-conditions-on-the-International-Space-Station

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/fungi-in-space/

Just like a family, we travel together.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

We live with a lot of fellow-travellers; even in outer space.
It turns out, fungi can be be interstellar hitchhikers as well.

http://www.agenciasinc.es/en/News/Antarctic-fungi-survive-Martian-conditions-on-the-International-Space-Station

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/fungi-in-space/

Just like a family, we travel together.

As I Floridian, I am well aware that we live with fungus among us.

[Ibrahim]

When I was a teen, we had to take a biology course in 10th grade. We had a chapter dedicated to fungus.

Being the cheeky fellow I am, I scrawled on every page where a fungus was pictured the word "im3affin"--the Colloquial Arabic word for "rotten", which can also mean "mold/fungus-infested" (mold is called "3afan").

[Husar]

When I was a teen, we had to take a biology course in 10th grade. We had a chapter dedicated to fungus.

Being the cheeky fellow I am, I scrawled on every page where a fungus was pictured the word "im3affin"--the Colloquial Arabic word for "rotten", which can also mean "mold/fungus-infested" (mold is called "3afan").

Is that imthreeaffin or like imbaffin or imzaffin or maybe imshaffin?

Please don't take it as aggressive as it may sound, but adding numbers to the word without any explanation seems more confusing than if you posted it in arabic letters. ~;)

[Beskar]

Is that imthreeaffin or like imbaffin or imzaffin or maybe imshaffin?

Please don't take it as aggressive as it may sound, but adding numbers to the word without any explanation seems more confusing than if you posted it in arabic letters. ~;)

I got to admit, I was thinking the same. Maybe it is like leet-speak?

h3ll0, 1 4m 7yp1n6 1n 4 m1x7ur3 0f l3773r5 4nd numb3r5 f0r n0 07h3r r3450n 7h4n 70 b3 1n4n3 4nd 4nn0y p30pl3 7ry1n6 70 r34d 7h15 m355463.

[Ibrahim]

You guys could have literally googled this you know :clown:

http://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/arabic-chat-alphabet/

No, I don't leet in English: that's ridiculous.

As you can see, 3 is used to write the Ayin, which is a sound used in Arabic. No European language has it, so we improvise. I was on my PC, which doesn't have an Arabic Keyboard. On my iPhone however, I'd have written معفن، معفنين

7 represents ha' (a thick, throaty h--again, not present in European languages, unless you count Maltese).


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[HopAlongBunny]

Not just outer space; inner space also works for fungi.
A core pulled from ~2500 feet below the surface contains fungi:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/moldy-rock-pulled-from-2-500-feet-underground/

Who cares?
Well people exploring options for long-term waste storage feel this presents a problem.
Long-term for storage of radioactive waste looks to stability for 100's if not 1000's of years, and fungi (bless their souls) can eat rock.
Mind you, perhaps we could be helping to realize yet another Star Trek concept...

[Risasi]

Not just outer space; inner space also works for fungi.
A core pulled from ~2500 feet below the surface contains fungi:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/moldy-rock-pulled-from-2-500-feet-underground/

Who cares?
Well people exploring options for long-term waste storage feel this presents a problem.
Long-term for storage of radioactive waste looks to stability for 100's if not 1000's of years, and fungi (bless their souls) can eat rock.
Mind you, perhaps we could be helping to realize yet another Star Trek concept...

Fascinating. It reminds me of bacterial breakdown of hydrocarbons from the BP oil spill: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-microbes-helped-clean-bp-s-oil-spill/

And a couple of years ago when looking at some low tech means of cleaning up heavy metals on my property I stumbled upon sunflowers: https://www.helladelicious.com/diy/2011/09/sunflowers-and-bacteria-clean-up-radiation/

The past two years I have been experimenting with leaf mould, hugelkultur and developing a mycorrizhal fungi colony in my back yard. I've had such success I'm taking every bag of leaves my neighbors will give me and bought a leaf shredder to rebuild my clay heavy topsoil. Tree and fungi symbiology also may very well be the key to reversing desertification and rebuilding nutrient depleted topsoil.

Here is another study in using oyster mushrooms to test potential oil spill clean up: http://www.fungi.com/blog/items/the-petroleum-problem.html