The explosion of Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine, on April 26, 1986, stands as the worst nuclear disaster in history. The catastrophe created a 30-kilometer exclusion zone—a desolate area still unsafe for human habitation due to lingering high radiation levels decades later.
Amid this radioactive wasteland, scientists have uncovered an unlikely survivor: a tough, black fungus known as Cladosporium sphaerospermum. Shortly after the disaster, researchers noticed black patches growing on the walls inside Reactor No. 4. Strangely, these fungi were flourishing in areas where radiation levels were most intense.
This fungus has adapted to survive radiation levels that would be deadly to most living organisms. Even more intriguing, it appears to “feed” on radiation, using it as an energy source much like plants use sunlight through photosynthesis.
Research revealed that Cladosporium sphaerospermum, along with other black fungi species like Wangiella dermatitidis and Cryptococcus neoformans, contains melanin—the same pigment that gives color to human skin. However, in these fungi, melanin serves a unique role: it absorbs radiation and converts it into energy that fuels growth, enabling the fungi to thrive in areas with extreme radioactive exposure.
This extraordinary adaptation provides a fascinating glimpse into how life can evolve and persist in the harshest and most hostile environments on Earth.
Cladosporium sphaerospermum belongs to a group of fungi known as radiotrophic fungi. Radiotrophic organisms can capture and utilize ionizing radiation to drive metabolic processes.
In the case of C. sphaerospermum, its high melanin content allows it to absorb radiation, similar to how plants absorb sunlight through chlorophyll, according to an October 2008 article published in the National Library of Medicine.
This process, while not identical to photosynthesis, serves a similar function by converting environmental energy into a form that sustains growth. Known as radiosynthesis, this phenomenon has sparked interest in biochemistry and radiation research.
Melanin, commonly found in living organisms as a natural defense against UV radiation, plays a more advanced role in Cladosporium sphaerospermum. Instead of merely acting as a shield, melanin in this fungus absorbs gamma radiation and converts it into chemical energy for growth.
A 2007 study published in PLOS ONE confirmed this unique energy mechanism, showing that fungi exposed to high radiation levels grow faster than those in non-radioactive conditions. This discovery has transformed our understanding of extremophiles—organisms that thrive in extreme environments—and their survival strategies.
Radiotrophic Fungi: A Potential Solution to Radiation Challenges
The discovery of C. sphaerospermum in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has renewed interest in radiotrophic fungi, especially for bioremediation—using living organisms to clean up environmental pollutants. In radioactive areas like Chernobyl, where traditional cleanup methods are dangerous and inefficient, radiotrophic fungi offer a safer, natural alternative. According to a 2008 article in FEMS Microbiology Letters, these fungi’s ability to absorb and utilize radiation could make them a powerful tool for containing and reducing contamination in affected areas.
Applications Beyond Earth
The potential of radiotrophic fungi extends far beyond Earth. Scientists are exploring their role in space exploration, particularly in addressing the challenge of radiation exposure during long-term missions. Space is an environment filled with cosmic radiation, one of the greatest obstacles to human exploration of Mars and beyond.
C. sphaerospermum has already been sent to the International Space Station (ISS) for experiments to test its ability to shield against radiation. Early findings suggest the fungus could help create radiation-resistant habitats or even provide a source of protected food for astronauts on extended missions.
From Survival to Innovation
Beyond its radiation-resistance, C. sphaerospermum is known for its exceptional resilience. It thrives in extreme conditions, enduring low temperatures, high salt concentrations, and intense acidity. This adaptability makes it one of the hardiest fungi known and a valuable subject of study for developing stress-resistant materials and technologies.
Researchers hope that genes responsible for the fungus’s resilience could one day be applied in biotechnology and agriculture. For example, these traits could lead to the creation of radiation-resistant materials or crops that survive in harsh, unfriendly climates.
A Fungus With Far-Reaching Potential
The extraordinary properties of C. sphaerospermum inspire hope for solving some of humanity’s toughest challenges, from cleaning up radioactive waste to protecting future space explorers. As research progresses, this fungus might even redefine how we think about life’s ability to adapt and thrive in extreme environments. What we learn from C. sphaerospermum could lead to breakthroughs across multiple fields, shaping the future of innovation while expanding the boundaries of life as we know it.
No. It would be cool, but this is unfortunately based on pseudoscience.
They are not feeding on any radiation, they are feeding on all the carbon based stuff down there, of which there is ample, and they are just surviving the radiation because their biology allows them to handle it. The doses are not even high for the fungi in question – filamentous fungi the lot of them – and nonmelanized fungi are among them; the doses are low enough that humans can survive in all but the worst of it long term without notable effect (excepting an increase in likelihood of cancer later). The fungi have 1:100th the DNA we do per nucleus thus each nucleus has about 1:100th the likelihood of being affected by (taking DNA damage from) any given particle or ‘ray’ compared to us (the main mechanism of gamma interaction with matter is to eject electrons so it inevitably becomes a fast electron anyway), so the overall dose can be expected to have 1/100th the effect even if they were cellular organisms like us. But the filamentous fungi in question are not: these fungi do not have individual cells, they are tiny networks of tubes containing numerous fungible nuclei flowing in a soup of cytoplasm, and when a nucleus is damaged in a way that would cause a single cell to lose control or to lack some necessary component of survival were they cellular organisms, the fungus can instead continue just fine using all the other nuclei without catastrophic effect – and if a few of the bazillion of asexual spores they produce from their nuclei fail to survive, they really don’t care much; worrying about it would be much like us caring about every sperm. Finally, the article claiming to have shown growth under radiation used a dose whose total energy deposited in the experimental setup used the yeast Cryptococcus, and the total dose’s energy amounted to the equivalent of a mere few cells per mL, but in a setup starting with 5 orders of magnitude higher numbers per mL – a mere drop of water in a pond, and not in any way detectable; even minor pipetting variations would be orders of magnitude higher. However the dose that showed the increased yeast count, 10^-6 Gray, is that at which the average fungal nucleus would experience one fast electron – one particle ‘event’ – with its corresponding need for DNA repair (and this is regardless of their number or position; every cell has an approximately equal probability). Moreover, another group showed the transcriptional effect of this radiation dose to overlap something like >70% with a response to light. Since it’s impossible for the growth shown to be due to absorbing the energy (again, its actually quite little), it’s instead likely that the yeast cells are on average each responding to the DNA damage as though it came from a more common source of such damage: UV light and/or reactive oxygen species, both of which it encounters only when and where a fungus reaches outside of its food source. In the environment, this is a large change, as it means things like that they may soon run out of food, they are now vulnerable on the surface to predation and UV damage, and they can sporulate. The shift in growth and metabolism represents different metabolic choices on how to partition its resources and activities in light of such a development; in the experimental setup, this would have including increased budding of the yeast. The increased budding that the article that (again impossibly) claimed to be due to the capture and metabolic use of the radiation provided, is instead most likely the fungus misinterpretating the DNA-damaging effects of the radiation (e.g. minor DNA damage) as if it were due to light and oxygen.
Additionally: the article claiming the increased budding to be due to the metabolic use of the energy from the radiation also invoked a number of ostensibly supporting claims from multiple scientific fields that are, each and every one, some combination of scientifically inaccurate, irrelevant, only even hypothetical within their fields, and/or debunked (sometimes long) prior. The article, and the demonstrably false conjecture spawned from it, are definitively pseudoscience.
If the fungus is super resilient, how do we control it’s growth in areas we do not want it to thrive?
What is the relation of this black mold to other types of black mold, other than color?
Is this mold harmful to humans? How?