This reminds of Cordwainer Smith's [1] most famous story, Scanners Live in Vain [2]. In the story, a scientist named Adam Stone has found a way to conquer The Great Pain of Space that affects humans who travel into space. To do so he builds a ship whose walls are teeming with life that shields the human inside it:<p><i>"I have loaded ships with life."</i><p><i>"Life?"</i><p><i>"Life. I don't know what the Great Pain is, but I did find that in the experiments, when I sent out masses of animals or plants, the life in the center of the mass lived longest. I built ships -small ones, of course- and sent them out with rabbits, with monkeys-"</i><p><i>"Those are Beasts?"</i><p><i>"Yes. With small Beasts. And the Beasts came back unhurt. They came back because the walls of the ships were filled with life. I tried many kinds, and finally found a sort of life which lives in the waters. Oysters. Oysterbeds. The outermost oysters died in the great pain. The inner ones lived. The passengers were unhurt."</i><p><i>"But they were Beasts?"</i><p><i>"Not only Beasts. Myself."</i><p><i>"You!"</i><p><i>"I came through Space alone. Through what you call the Up-and-Out, alone. Awake and sleeping. I am unhurt. If you do not believe me, ask your brother Scanners. Come and see my ship in the morning. I will be glad to see you then, along with your brother Scanners. I am going to demonstrate before the Chiefs of the Instrumentality."</i><p><a href="https://archive.org/stream/ScannersLiveInVain/SmithCordwainer-ScannersLiveInVain.txt" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/stream/ScannersLiveInVain/SmithCordwaine...</a><p>_____________<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners_Live_in_Vain" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners_Live_in_Vain</a>
For the record, here is the correct math for attenuation of high energy photons with a nice explanation from NIST:
<a href="https://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/XrayMassCoef/chap2.html" rel="nofollow">https://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/XrayMassCoef/chap2.html</a><p>The coefficient in the exponential is 0.0161/mm for these data, so a 100 mm thick layer will stop 80% of their measured spectrum. A 200 mm thick layer will stop 96%.<p>The same relationship applies for higher energy gammas as well, but the coefficents will be energy dependent.
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.
A likely way to cut the Gordian Knot of outer space radiation exposure is to prophylactically have everyone take C60. See the study below.<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0041008X0900475X" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00410...</a>
Clearly the end goal for this research is figuring out why the fungi can block radiation and taking advantage of that for better radiation shielding. We’re not going to be flying around in spaceships coated in fungi.
species: Cladosporium sphaerospermum<p>"""<p>radiation beneath a ≈ 1.7 mm thick lawn of the dematiaceous radiotrophic fungus was 2.17±0.25% lower as compared to the negative control. In addition, a growth advantage in Space of ~ 21% was observed, substantiating the thesis that the fungus’ radiotropism is extendable to Space radiation.<p>"""
What is it with all the fuzz a out fungi in space lately? Is Discovery so well-liked or is it the other way around?<p>Serious question: How does the fungus release the energy? heat? Could we use them as some kind of biological radiation thermal panels on Mars?