Space Fungus Eating Mir (Really)

dublin writes: "The Boston Globe has a good article about how Mir is being eaten alive by virulent fungi. The fungi, which are found both inside and outside the aging space station, are rampant to the point that a cosmonaut has said, "There were areas you wouldn't want to stick your hand in." NASA reports that some of these fungi can attack and weaken plastics and even metals. "

Comments

Re:Amazing... life goes on... literally

[Flounder]

it'll be interesting to see if they find a variety that lives (or at least survives) in a vacuum.

Ever been to a Star Trek convention?

Space research should pay off...

[DeepDarkSky]

If they find out if this stuff can eat away plastic, then maybe we can figure out a way to contain them and put them to use to eat away non-decomposable plastic items in landfills - heck, just let them decompose landfills completely.

Space laboratory for fungus-based pharmaceutical research should also be interesting - after all, with the conditions being really good for mutations, they may discover new drugs created by bacteria sooner.

The only downsides are that if these mutated bacteria/fungi turn out to be deadly and highly contagious and gets back to earth, it could spell doom for humanity. You could just see Hollywood jump on this kind of story to make the next doom-gloom movie, Armageddon and its ilk.

HAIL FUNGUS!

[Johnny Starrock]

Mir has been taken over, "conquered", if you will by a master race of space fungus. It's difficult to tell if they will consume the cosmonauts or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping it; the space fungus will soon be here.

And I, for one, welcome our new fungal overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted website, /. can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground moisture caves.

(appologies to the Simpsons writers, i just couldn't resist..)

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It's not really "space fungus"...

[Ariston]

"The fungi that did the damage, Novikova said, included members of the genera Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Cladesporium - all very common on Earth."

Sounds to me like the stuff was on the station before it ever got into space. Like FreeMars said, there's nothing in the article that mentions any fungus growing outside the station.
(still, wouldn't it be a little disappointing if the first "attack" by an extraterrestrial organism was a fungus?) ;-)

Of course!

[dizee]

Aerobic bacteria require oxygen to live.
Anaerobic bacteria thrive in the absence of oxygen.

The most notable anaerobic process is probably alcoholic fermentation, in which yeast (an anaerobic bacterium) converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. If you've ever been anywhere where they make alcohol, such as the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, TN (I live down the road from it!), and leaned over the vats very far, you can't breathe because of the massive amounts of carbon dioxide produced by the fermentation process. Not to mention it smells terrible.

Probably the most familiar aerobic fermentation is lactic fermentation, which occurs within muscle tissue (as well as other places, like milk, yuck!). A saccharine (such as glucose) is converted into lactic acid, which builds up in the muscle tissue as oxygen is supplied during excercise. It is this build-up of lactic acid that causes muscles to be sore after exercise.

So, yes, this form of life can live in a vacuum. If they break down plastics and metals, I wonder what type of chemical reaction takes place, what type of fermentation is going on. It may be possible to use the byproducts of this fermentations to our advantage.

Mike

"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."

Much broader implications for exobiology

[Lish]

This pretty much refutes the past assertion among the space community that space is too hostile (radiation, extreme heat & cold) to support microbial/fungal life. If fungi, bacteria, etc can survive (thrive!) on the exterior of Mir, why not on Mars? Are the environments really all that different?

This has two separate but related implications on the search for microbial life (live, remains, fossils) on Mars. First, it opens the possibility that some area of Mars that we haven't explored closely (ie, a lot) may contain evidence of past/present life. Second, what if a probe (or people, someday) sent to Mars isn't properly sterile, and we expose the surface to mold/bacteria from Earth? That would confuse and cast doubt on any findings regarding Mars' biology. Suppose we did find evidence of mold on Mars. How do we know it originated there, and didn't just hitch a ride from Earth?

I wonder if they've really thought about that.

Useful link

[Lish]

Here's a link to the original space.com story:
Space Fungus: A Menace to Orbital Habitats
with pictures of damage. Also somewhat more informative.