Fungi, Our Costant Companions

[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...t-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/a...p-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/2...-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-...m-problem.html