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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 12 2017, @03:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the giving-fungi-a-spore-ting-chance dept.

A NASA study of fungi in a simulated Mars habitat found that fungal diversity increased and changed after humans were introduced, with certain fungi increasing or decreasing in presence over a period of 30 days. The results have implications for the cleaning and maintenance of space habitats to ensure the health of astronauts, and may lead to the screening of the mycobiomes of potential spacecraft/habitat occupants:

Three crews of students lived in an inflatable lunar/Mars analog habitat (ILMAH) for 30 days. The ILMAH was closed off from the outside world for the duration of their stay, except for an exchange of filtered air. Prior to habitation, the surfaces were cleaned with a bleach solution, and during the experiment, the surfaces were cleaned weekly with antibacterial wipes. Eight surfaces in the habitat were sampled four times: on day zero, day 13, day 20, and day 30.

By culturing the samples, the researchers uncovered a significant increase in fungal abundance between the collection time points. They also found that the culturable fungal population was higher for the lab area of the ILMAH than the others. In particular, they identified Cladosporium cladosporioides, Epicoccum nigrum, and Aspergillus tubingensis among the culturable fungi.

[...] When they examined the samples over time, they observed variations in abundance and noted that during human occupation of the ILMAH, the fungal diversity changed. For instance, levels of Pleosporaceae varied from 96 percent on day zero to 47 percent on day 20, and up to 70 percent on day 30. While Pleosporaceae decreased on day 20, levels of Davidiellaceae, Dothioraceae, Saccharomycetales, and Trichocomaceae increased, as compared to other time points.

Similarly, Epicoccum, Alternaria, Pleosporales, and Cryptococcus were highly abundant at day zero, but decreased in numbers by day 20 before increasing again by day 30.

They further noted that Alternaria, Cladosporium, and Epicoccum — all of which they uncovered in their study — are common household fungi. Though the researchers said that Cladosporium cladosporioides rarely causes infections, they said it could lead to asthmatic reactions in people with weakened immune systems, such as astronauts.

Also at EurekAlert and CNET.

Human presence impacts fungal diversity of inflated lunar/Mars analog habitat (open, DOI: 10.1186/s40168-017-0280-8) (DX)


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @06:01AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @06:01AM (#537963)

    It's hard to compete against something that is getting pumped everywhere in great volume.

    It's hard to compete against something that has to waste resources making extra DNA, protein, and more.

    It's hard to compete... when we can just take any new super-mutant and build a new genetically modified one off of it.

    Anyway, it is proven to work in peanut fields. Most of us humans like winning. I'm not tired of winning yet.

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 12 2017, @06:38AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 12 2017, @06:38AM (#537975) Journal

    Proven to work? At best, a "statistical proof".

    Most of us humans like winning. I'm not tired of winning yet.

    If you like "demonstrations by anecdotes" so much, here's one for you:
    most of us humans like sex. Up to an age, after which sex become too tiresome.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday July 12 2017, @07:47AM (3 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Wednesday July 12 2017, @07:47AM (#537994) Homepage

    You don't need to compete.

    If you create a non-toxic version, then others things can use it as food. Maybe things that wouldn't have such an abundant and easy-to-process food source normally.

    Environments are an equilibrium, as soon as you upset the balance, things change. And all of a sudden that other organism that feeds by sipping from that toxic mold is about to go mad and replicate like crazy, unlike ever before in its nature, and you have an entirely different class of unexpected problem to deal with.

    Literally, EVERY time humans interfere, they upset the balance - which doesn't result in end-of-world, but only by chance. What it ALWAYS results in, though, is unexpected changes elsewhere. Wipe out the bacteria in hospitals, breed MRSA. Wipe out the native vermin, now the solution used is the pest. Introduce pesticides, destroy the bees which destroys the crops you were trying to stop pests from destroying.

    It's just not that simple, I'm afraid.

    • (Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday July 12 2017, @10:31AM (2 children)

      by unauthorized (3776) on Wednesday July 12 2017, @10:31AM (#538017)

      Literally, EVERY time humans interfere, they upset the balance

      I for one am glad we "upset the balance" for the Bubonic plague and all the other horrible infectious diseases we've nearly or completely eradicated.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Wednesday July 12 2017, @11:16AM (1 child)

        by ledow (5567) on Wednesday July 12 2017, @11:16AM (#538022) Homepage

        We have eradicated precisely one (nearly two, but not quite) infections in the whole of human history. Smallpox.

        And it's now believed that a similar virus to the other (can't remember the name) has mutated from animal versions again and could infect humans again.

        Sorry, but we're just temporarily fucking with things to our own cause, not eliminating them - and in the process we made lots of other infections immune to our only defense (antibiotics), such that we are now being warned by doctors that there are some strains that they cannot treat.

        It's never as simple as "we fixed that". It's more "we bought some time, by potentially making the future worse".

        • (Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday July 12 2017, @10:33PM

          by unauthorized (3776) on Wednesday July 12 2017, @10:33PM (#538399)

          Nirvana fallacy: the comment. Now with 100% extra vacuous scaremongering.

          and in the process we made lots of other infections immune to our only defense (antibiotics)

          This is so profoundly wrong, that it deserves special attention. Our primary means of combating epidemics are effective containment strategy, hygiene and vaccination. Antibiotics are neither our only defense against infectious diseases, nor even an effective tool to contain them.