Something amazing is happening in the dark corners of Chernobyl…
Bioluminescent fungi glowing in a dark forest, evoking the resilience of radiotrophic organisms like those found in Chernobyl. A symbol of life thriving in extreme environments.
The dark song of Chernobyl
Life, death, and the strange resilience of radiotrophic fungi
In the silent chambers of Pripyat, where grass breaks through cracked concrete and shattered windows whisper in the wind, a different kind of life persists. Not the rebirth of trees or birdsong — but something stranger, quieter, deeper. It grows in the margins of devastation, where death once ruled.
Within the crumbling walls of Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, a black fungus thrives. It does not merely survive — it flourishes, feeding on what to all other life is lethal.
Close-up of mold and fungal colonies, illustrating the complex beauty and potential danger of radiotrophic fungi in extreme environments like Chernobyl.
As reported by El Confidencial (2020), this fungus not only withstands ionizing radiation — it seeks it out, feeding on it through the molecular alchemy of melanin. This is the same pigment that gives colour to our skin, hair, and eyes — and here, it acts as both shield and conduit, transforming deadly energy into sustenance.
It’s a discovery as staggering as it is humbling — a reminder that life, even in its smallest, strangest forms, always finds a way to endure. Even in the places we’ve abandoned.
A bloom in the ruins
Decades ago, researchers first discovered these strange fungal colonies growing deep in the irradiated heart of the Chernobyl complex. Not only were they unaffected by radiation — they appeared drawn to it.
Further studies, such as those by Dadachova and Casadevall (2008), confirmed the impossible: melanized fungi actually grow faster when exposed to ionizing radiation.
They found that these organisms can not only colonize extreme environments but morphologically adapt to them — radiation acts as a trigger, enhancing the expression of key genes that aid survival.
According to a foundational study by Zhdanova, Tugay, Dighton, Zheltonozhsky, and McDermott (2004), more than 2,000 fungal strains, spanning 200 species and 98 genera, have been isolated from around Chernobyl.
Some of these fungi don’t just tolerate radioactive materials like hot graphite found inside the reactor — they actively decompose it. Even more remarkably, they orient their growth toward sources of ionizing radiation, as if following a signal, or heeding an ancient instinct.
It’s as if the fungi are dancing in the dark, drawn to a rhythm we cannot hear.
Melanin: nature’s dark engine
A research by Dadachova et al. (2007) brought new depth to this enigma. They compared melanized and non-melanized fungal cells under radiation exposure. The melanized cells not only survived — they grew significantly more.
A gloved hand holds a petri dish teeming with radiotrophic fungi—organisms that thrive in radioactive environments by harnessing ionizing radiation, hinting at nature’s uncanny ability to adapt and reclaim even the most damaged spaces.
Their findings suggest melanin may convert radiation into usable chemical energy — something akin to a shadow-form of photosynthesis. A biological sleight of hand: turning poison into power.
Though the exact mechanisms remain under study, the possibility alone has reshaped how we think about survival in extreme environments. Melanin here becomes more than a pigment — it becomes a passage, a transformer, a guardian against the invisible.
Yet, like radiation itself, these fungi are not without danger. When they interact with humans in unintended ways, they can cause a wide range of illnesses — from asthma and allergic fungal sinusitis to deadly systemic infections. As Geddes (2023) warns, fungal infections already kill more than 2 million people every year — more than tuberculosis or malaria — and that number is rising.
So the relationship we share with these organisms, like the environments they inhabit, is ambiguous — poised between potential and peril, cure and contamination.
Melanin among the stars
It begins in silence, as most things in space do.
But even in the stillness beyond Earth, there is danger — and among the gravest threats to human life beyond the atmosphere is the one we cannot see: radiation.
Cosmic rays and solar flares pierce the thin shields of our spacecraft and our suits, carrying energy so immense it can shred DNA in a breathless instant. For all our metal and science, we remain soft-bodied visitors in a violent void.
And yet — in the unlikeliest of allies, we may find protection.
The same dark fungi that grew along Chernobyl’s ruined walls have now entered the realm of space exploration. Specifically, one species: Cladosporium sphaerospermum — a black fungus that not only survives radiation but may, astonishingly, serve as a living shield against it.
According to Shunk, Gomez, and Averesch (2020), the most pressing existential challenge for deep-space missions is radiation. Conventional shielding is heavy, expensive, and limited. But fungi, with their self-replicating, regenerative qualities — and their appetite for ionizing energy — offer an alternative: not steel, but biology as defense.
Melanin, it turns out, doesn’t merely protect fungi from radiation. It absorbs it. In the vacuum and exposure of space, this dark pigment acts like a cosmic sunscreen, a biochemical barrier forged in evolutionary shadows.
In 2019, NASA sent melanized fungal samples to the International Space Station, seeking to test their potential for shielding humans in orbit and, one day, far beyond. As reported by Al-Heeti and Ryan (2020), researchers hoped to see if melanin could be harvested or synthesized into protective materials — a wearable habitat for explorers bound for the Moon, Mars, or more distant frontiers.
It is, in a way, poetic: the very organism born of Earth’s worst nuclear catastrophe, now repurposed as a protector for humankind’s boldest journey. A strange redemption, growing in the dark.
Bioremediation: life cleaning the wounds of man
But this story is not confined to the stars. The implications here — in the dirt, the ruins, the toxic fields of our own making — are just as profound.
Armed with the knowledge of how these fungi interact with radiation, scientists are now exploring their role in bioremediation: the use of living organisms to cleanse environments poisoned by humanity.
Dighton, Tugay, and Zhdanova (2008) proposed the use of melanized fungi in the cleanup of radioactive waste, envisioning a future where the natural processes of decay and growth might neutralize what we once believed permanent.
And recent findings explained by Travers (2024) go even further. C. sphaerospermum, the same fungus sent into space, appears capable not only of absorbing radiation — but of using it as fuel. That is, it may not simply endure contamination, but consume and diminish it.
This opens the door to unimaginable applications: fungi cultivated around nuclear waste sites, in abandoned fallout zones, or within containment systems — living guardians that both feed and protect.
This diagram depicts the process of bioremediation, where microorganisms (microbes) utilize oxygen and nutrients to break down contaminants in a polluted area, such as a body of water affected by industrial waste. The process releases carbon dioxide and ultimately leads to the recovery of a healthier ecosystem, a concept relevant to the potential use of Chernobyl's radiotrophic fungi for environmental cleanup.
The first results are promising. Melanized fungi have shown potential in shaping radiation-resistant habitats and even in shielding crops intended for space agriculture. They grow, adapt, and survive — all while muting the energy that would destroy us.
And there’s something else: these fungi are hardy beyond their radiotrophic gifts. They tolerate extremes in temperature, salinity, and acidity — thriving in environments we consider barren. Their resilience is both a mystery and an invitation:
What can we learn from an organism that lives so easily in conditions that challenge every other known form of life?
Toward a radiant future
If there is poetry in decay, it is surely written in the language of fungi.
They are the world’s quiet archivists — breaking down the dead to feed the living, thriving in soil, shadows, silence. But some, like the melanized fungi of Chernobyl, are more than decomposers. They are evolution incarnate — rewriting the rules of life in the most hostile environments known to humankind.
Consider the findings of Tibolla and Fischer (2025). In their most recent study, they present radiotrophic fungi as promising agents of biorremediation and biosensing — organisms that don’t just survive radiation, but actively respond to it.
These fungi could be engineered to serve as living detectors, signaling the presence of dangerous ionizing waves in industrial zones, medical labs, or outer space. They could line the walls of space stations, nuclear submarines, or deep geological repositories, pulsing invisibly, protecting quietly.
But their potential doesn’t stop there.
These organisms may soon play a role in protecting electronic equipment, preserving human health, and even monitoring radiation leaks in real-time. Because they grow, shift, and respond to their environment, they may outperform static materials in adaptability and efficiency.
And crucially — they self-replicate. Where traditional shielding decays over time, fungi rebuild themselves. They heal, propagate, and spread, their strength increasing with exposure.
It’s a biology that almost borders on philosophy.
These creatures do not resist destruction; they incorporate it, make it their medium. Where we shield and shudder, they turn the harmful into harvest. Where we see ruins, they build their homes.
The echo of survival
This is not, in the end, a story about fungi alone. It’s a story about adaptation — and about reimagining our relationship with life at the margins.
The discovery that these fungi can endure, respond to, and even utilize radiation is astonishing. But even more astonishing is the way we might integrate their resilience into our own story:
Through biotechnological innovation, through space exploration, and through a renewed humility about the intelligence coded into nature’s oldest forms.
They are ancient. They are dark. They are often feared. But in them we see the blueprint for something astonishing — not just survival, but transformation.
A way to clean our own mess, to shield our most daring travelers, and perhaps, to remember that life doesn’t always flourish in light.
Overgrown vegetation surrounds the abandoned Hotel Polissya in Pripyat, Ukraine, a haunting symbol of the Chernobyl disaster. Nature slowly reclaims the site, reminding us that even in irradiated silence, life endures.
Final reflections
In the heart of Chernobyl — a place once symbolic of humanity’s catastrophic overreach — something quiet and black and living is telling a different story.
It says: I will not die here. I will change. I will grow in the fallout.
It says: Your end is not my end.
It teaches us that life is not linear — not always visible — and not always soft or clean.
Sometimes, life is dark, radiant, resilient. Sometimes it wears the skin of fungi.
And as we move forward — into polluted futures, into orbit, into deep space — we may find that it is not machines that save us, but the strange, the overlooked.
A spore.
A pigment.
A thread of life that grows toward death, and makes from it something new.
References
Al-Heeti, A., & Ryan, J. (2020) Fungi found in Chernobyl feeds on radiation, could protect astronauts. CNET. https://www.cnet.com/science/fungi-found-in-chernobyl-feeds-on-radiation-report-says/
Baxi, S., Portnoy, J., Larenas-Linnemann, D., & Phipatanakul, W. (2016) Environmental Allergens Workgroup. Exposure and Health Effects of Fungi on Humans. J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract. 2016 May-Jun;4(3):396-404. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaip.2016.01.008. Epub 2016 Mar 3. PMID: 26947460; PMCID: PMC4861659.
Dadachova E., Bryan R.A., Huang X., Moadel T., Schweitzer A.D., et al. (2007) Ionizing Radiation Changes the Electronic Properties of Melanin and Enhances the Growth of Melanized Fungi. PLOS ONE 2(5): e457. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000457
Dighton, J., Tugay, T., & Zhdanova, N. (2008) Fungi and ionizing radiation from radionuclides, FEMS Microbiology Letters, Volume 281, Issue 2, April 2008, Pages 109–120, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-6968.2008.01076.x
Dadachova, E., & Casadevall, A. (2008) Ionizing radiation: how fungi cope, adapt, and exploit with the help of melanin. Curr Opin Microbiol. 2008 Dec;11(6):525-31. DOI: 10.1016/j.mib.2008.09.013. Epub 2008 Oct 24. PMID: 18848901; PMCID: PMC2677413.
El Confidencial (2020) Así es el hongo del reactor de Chernóbil que no muere y se alimenta de radiación. El Confidencial. https://www.elconfidencial.com/tecnologia/ciencia/2020-02-07/hongo-chernobil-no-muere-come-radiacion_2445731/
Geddes, L. (2023) ‘A growing threat to human health’: we are ill-equipped for the dangers of fungal infections. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/10/a-growing-threat-to-human-health-we-are-ill-equipped-for-the-dangers-of-fungal-infections
Shunk, G., Gomez, X., & Averesch, N. (2020) A Self-Replicating Radiation-Shield for Human Deep-Space Exploration: Radiotrophic Fungi can Attenuate Ionizing Radiation aboard the International Space Station. bioRxiv 2020.07.16.205534; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.16.205534
Travers, S. (2024) This Black Fungus Might Be Healing Chernobyl By Drinking Radiation—A Biologist Explains. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/scotttravers/2024/11/02/this-black-fungus-might-be-healing-chernobyl-by-drinking-radiation-a-biologist-explains/
Tibolla, M., & Fischer, J. (2025) Radiotrophic fungi and their use as bioremediation agents of areas affected by radiation and as protective agents. Research, Society and Development, v. 14, n. 1, e2514147965, (CC BY 4.0) | ISSN 2525-3409 | DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v14i1.47965.
Zhdanova, N.N., Tugay, T., Dighton, J., Zheltonozhsky, V., & McDermott, P. (2004) Ionizing radiation attracts soil fungi. Mycol Res. Sep;108(Pt 9):1089-96. DOI: 10.1017/s0953756204000966. PMID: 15506020.
