Chernobyl

Five years after the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl, scientists discovered a fungi known as Cryptococcus neoformans growing in the wreckage. Humans had known about this particular strain since the late 1800s, since it's known to cause some nasty infections in…

A song from the musical Les Misérables is making the rounds on Chinese social media after the death of Li Wenliang, the doctor credited as the coronavirus whistleblower.  The musical's "Can You Hear The People Sing?" has become rallying cry for pro-democracy…

Main Blog > The Chernobyl Fungus That Eats Radiation Scientists have been studying an extremophile fungus growing at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone for years. This fungus apparently grows toward radiation the way plants grow toward sunlight. It consumes the radiation and uses it for energy, like little power plants!How can…

The world's largest iceberg will soon be entering the open ocean.A68, a gigantic berg that broke free from the Antarctic in July 2017, has now pushed farther north.When it calved off of the Larsen C Ice Shelf, the iceberg had an area close to 2,300 square miles, and it has…

Twenty tawny sharks were seen wriggling in shallow water on the beach in Australia.Local resident William Bero, who filmed the scene and posted the footage to YouTube, told a news site called Tropic Now that the sharks tend to visit beaches on Mer Island to perform this "dance" as they…

The Chinese internet is seeing an overwhelming outpouring of anger and grief for Li Wenliang, a doctor who was among the first to reveal the outbreak of a new coronavirus to others in China. Li died early this morning (Feb. 7), becoming one of the roughly 640 deaths from the…

A type of black fungi that eats radiation was discovered inside the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. In 1991, the strange fungi was found growing up the walls of the reactor, which baffled scientists due to the extreme, radiation-heavy environment. Researchers ev…

A fungus observed inside Chernobyl is a radiation extremophile that could inspire new technology. Removing radiation and even turning it into energy could help clean disaster sites and enable spaceflight.The fungi use high amounts of…

My first job out of college was preventing a nuclear power station from melting down. It was summer 1986, the fall-out from Chernobyl was blowing over Europe and, after graduating in engineering science, I undertook a software development project for the UK A…

Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via APBack in 1991, scientists were amazed when they made the discovery... In the eerie environment inside the abandoned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, researchers remotely piloting robots spotted pitch black fungi growing on the walls of the decimated No. 4 nuclear reactor and even apparently breaking…