Why are scientists shooting mushrooms into space? - Shannon Odell
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2024
- Explore the unique characteristics that make fungi so resilient, and find out why they may be the key to future space travel.
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Astronauts aboard the space station Mir made a frightening discovery: several species of Earth-derived fungi were found growing throughout the shuttle, blanketing air conditioners and corroding control panels, putting both the station’s integrity and their lives at risk. How had the fungi survived the journey to space? Shannon Odell shares why fungi may be the key to our future on other planets.
Lesson by Shannon Odell, directed by Denys Spolitak.
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We’d be like a colony of space smurfs living in mushrooms.
Hey you can say that we would have a lot of *FUN-GI-S* living in space...fun guys? and fungi ... Get it?!....
with Gargamel and his cat Azrael working with the Sith Empire for the "domination of the empire of cruelty"
WE LIVE, WE LOVE, WE LIE
Lol yep
@elvirak8846 It's ok, buddy. I'm still giving you an A for effort.
Carbon negative, thermal and radiation resistant homes? Sounds more useful here on earth than on another planet.
I'd imagine there'd certainly be some hurdles to even begin approaching mass production for a material like this, but yeah, definitely.
@@tcxd1164 If we want a big, functioning colony, we would need some way of, if not mass production, then somewhat fast production of them
I'd imagine the moisture would quickly degrade the material on earth. In a barren space wasteland, that wouldn't be a problem.
However that bit about cracks doesn't seem like a good solution is y'know, the outside air is not breathable.
@@tcxd1164 It's being worked on currently! I've seen prototypes of bricks made of fungus actually here in the USA. It's actually very interesting, and there are far more uses for fungi than the vid mentions that the lab I saw was trying to do with them!
True…though I gotta ask where you’re living that radiation resistance is relevant
One small step for spores.
One giant leap for fungi.
Ah see what you did there... Good one 🤣
😮
well, there ain't mushroom left on earth. That's why we're heading for Mars!
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@DefinitelyNotAPiano
My mom ate the last mushroom :D
This feels like the pitch for the: "biggest let down of Space horror movie".
We have fungus growing everywhere, "What do we do???" (Then they astronauts just end up cleaning...)
Jesus is the only way to salvation and to the father.
Please repent today and turn away from your sins yo escape judgement 🙏🙏 There is no other way to get to the father but through him.
Turn it into Cocoon or The Abyss where they wind up getting along.
@@zerwif Most aliens are benevolent, or are kind and friendly. We are just conditioned by Hollywood that they will always attack us.
@@idehenebenezer jesus told me he thinks ur cringe
okay but imagine they didn't know it was, until the very end. they thought they were getting chased around by nightmare terror monsters and anomalies and mind-bending fuckery, but it was really just the psychotropic effects of some hull lichen or sth, and they literally have to clean up not only the fungus, but the bodies of the few who killed one another while under the influence.
horror to tragedy
The Last of Us 3: Space Invasion
Halo: The Flood
Nice
😂
It’s like halo flood but ends up looking more like deadspace
It’s not a good time unless your into that
Love the comment
somewhere in an alternative universe, some of the fungi would evolve into sentient mushroom folks that call themselves toads, ruled by one of the few surviving descendants of the humans: a young girl called peach.
but another intelligent species of turtles would kidnapp her to mate with their king and so the last human italians were sent to rescue her
@@femboiii Who would be disappointed upon finding that the princess was on another planet.
Love it 😂
@@neinotter😂
Mario
“Break the mold” lol good pun
A wise man once said, "Only shooting stars break the mold."
@@sleepi-nouth-laureltine-8108 SOME-
@@sleepi-nouth-laureltine-8108 Somebody once told me,
Fungi: Thats the Yeast i can do.
Lmao
THE greates pun in the comment section
Very yeast
Okay, the visual at 2:52 is extremely misleading. For the most part, the fungus IS the mycelium. It doesn't grow like roots down from mushrooms like the way plants grow. The mycelium sends up mushrooms to disperse spores. They're a lot like fruit.
this needs to be pinned, that is 100% correct Mushrooms are the fruit, mycelium just lays underground and always has been, the oldest and biggest living organism on earth.
🤓☝️
Mark Twain said, "Name of all the greatest inventors. Accident." Same is here with us how we interacted with fungi at first step in space and now what potention they may behold for us.
Just Fascinating !😮
Enormous potention
Thats how I find tech in fighting games. Tech I never use lol.
Perhaps Fungi aren't even native to the Earth it has been an alien invader all along.
I really like this idea
Plants vs zombies lore would go crazy
Genomics seems to suggest otherwise - unless we wildly misunderstand the process of evolution 🫣
It's why fungi have their own classification/Biological Kingdom. They are aliens.
Wack
Well, fungi can live in space because there's mush-room.
😂😂this ate!
So mush-room! Yeah!
This made me blow a lot of air from my nose 😂 tnx
love u
wonderful!
With that survivability and adaptability, invasive strains will be impossible to eradicate.
let them terraform for a decade and then see what we got... a new eden or lovecraftian nightmare?
@@360.Tapestryfungi dont need to control another planet, *THEY ALREADY CONTROL OURS*
That's only a concern if the engineered strains release spores. I'm pretty sure we could make certain that they don't if we're planning on sending the stuff to Mars; biological contamination outside the habitats would be a big no-no.
"..and will undoubtedly continue to break the mould."
I see what you did there
considering fungi were the first flora to blanket landmasses and evolved into the 1st trees, I would say their the perfect candidates to use on a barren alien rock.
Fungi did not evolve into trees 🤦 Plants are in a different phylogenetic kingdom than fungi.
@@DegreesOfThree my apologies, I heard somewhere they were the 1st to evolve outer bark and true wood, eventually trading spores for seeds.
Basically going from fungi, to ferns, to trees; now I can't find the dang source I heard it from despite it being about a week ago.
@@nerdlingeeksly5192 yes there were large tree-like fungi called Prototaxite, they were similar to large poles, they mostly died out due to competition from plants and more efficient competitors, but yes, they were pretty large, similar in size to trees
@@nerdlingeeksly5192 this theory has changed, but it still not sure, just as much in science is. For now it is presumed that algae were the first, then larger plants rose as soil was taken over. The plants left a lot of organics behinds, which means a lot of food and an opportunity for fungi decomposers. The most interesting thing is that when the plant needed to spread its seed, mobile fungi eventually became more and more animalistic. This can be seen in the cell changes - plant has thick wall, fungi a wall and a membrane, animal - a membrane.
I've also read a book which stated that our ego hailed from fungi, ever hungry for more.
@nerdlingeeksly5192 Unfortunately you heard wrong; fungi come from plants (in the sense that so do animals) but they split off from plants MYA. For plants it went from algae, mosses, ferns/fern allies, to eventually to plants that have seeds. There’s a YT channel called PBS Eons that talks about paleobotany among other things, that you would enjoy! Check it out!
Because everyone loves him, he is a really Fungi.
I have been itching to read the comments for this joke every time she said Fungi.
@@Simqer Its honestly very hard to resist the urge.
Because a mushroom is a fungi to have around up in space
Comment of the year right here👆🎉
I now understand why all these historic events are happening, the universe is high on the mushrooms these scientists are shooting into space.
Very interesting! Though I wouldn’t trust a habitat made of fungus, but I’m not an astronaut so I don’t think NASA is worried about my opinions 💀
I for one welcome our goopy bio-ship space jungle future
I can imagine them using the fungi as insulation from heat and radiation but also having a thin skin - kind of like the tent like hab in The Martian inside that as a final barrier to act as an extra air seal. You might even have alternaling layers of fungus and canvas. If you did that you could even have a presure gradient between the layers e.g. a wall like this: outside, canvas, fugal layer at 30% living presure, canvas, fugal layer at 60% living presure, canvas, living area. Granted, that meant a lot more material to send, but given the increased safty it might be thought worth it, and with a system live that you could have sensors tomonitor pressure between the layers to give advanced warning, so your not is a situation where ripped canvas would make the whole structure decompress. 60% living pressure might not be healthy, but it would be suvivable for much longer than the scanty atmospheric pressure of Mars or the Moon, so there would be more time to fix the problem.
Most homes have fungus growing in them anyways.
@@arlorizo4587yes, but that’s not the same as relying on them for a large part of your home integrity. Currently the fungi living in our homes are (mostly) unintended residents. Exceptions are medications derived from fungi and food fungi
Amazing. Mushrooms are truly one of the apex life forms of our planet. I feel like it's Mushrooms, us, and trees, in that order
Oi what about the dolphins
Don’t forget octopuses, who have remained the same evolutionarily for millions of years
Not putting humans at the apex is so tone deaf😂.
@mccoyfromspace @divineconfetti649 those are some really good suggestions, but I feel like they haven’t dominated the world in the same way trees, mushrooms and us have. Like, there was a time when life on earth almost died because trees were creating too much oxygen. Then mushrooms were the ones who finally started to eat them, and they almost run the decomposition stage. Idk if octopi or dolphins have gotten that level of domination, though they’re super impressive still.
@@jonathanhoffman7464 oh I agree with you, I was initially just referencing Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 😂
wow, this space mushroom stuff, sounds like a cross between "travel to the center of the earth" and "trip to the moon" to me.
Sounds intriguing, but there is the invasive scenario: Fungi is discovered to be pervasive inside a human-made capsule, covering all surfaces, and so we decide to take it to an alien planet suitable for humans where our earth fungi then spreads out and destroys native species.
Don’t colonize alien planets with fungi then? Just terraform an uninhabited one.
Yeah you are talking about leaving the solar system. We dont even know if that’s possible yet.
We'd probably end up experiencing that way sooner here on Earth in the process of growing structures or sometyhing
Wait, they can use radiation as energy? Like, radiosynthesis?? We could seed these on random planets and they'd start entire new biospheres. Thats nuts.
That's literally photosynthesis, mate 😂
You know? Generating energy from photons i.e. electromagnetic radiation
No wonder the Orks are so resilient in Warhammer 40k.
not only that but because of the lack of mass a single spore is,it could be sent at near light speeds to other planets a millenia away
Forget space, I want my own house to be built out of mushrooms!
This is an explanation why Orks are such a strong faction
One with the Boiz
Why do they show us this stuff but never explain what is preventing it from being in use?
damn that's so interesting to see actual use of kingdom fungi in development of space research
I want to ready a scifi book using this technology for space colonization and terraforming. This is so interesting!
Go for it!
I am also kind of curious about the idea of using mushrooms to saturate the regolith and turn it into soil as tey did thousands upon thousands of years on our planet. As much as I know, these are the guys which were responsible for the plant life and consequently animal life emerging from the oceans onto the land! Of course it would take much more time than we could probably afford to wait, but why not research this anyway?
problem is, the moon is too small to hold on to any substantial atmosphere. First, cuz low gravity means it doesn't have a tight grip. Second, there's no magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind literally sandblasting it away.
in domes though, sure absolutely.
@@recurvestickerdragon I was talking about Mars, however the lack of magnetic field is shared with that planet as well. Maybe it will change once we will have enough energy to "launch" Mars's core :shrug:
this reminds me of a game, a specific one, about killing bosses and crafting and exploring, and it has a biome, about blue mushrooms..
Warhammer 40k ork fans feel so validated right now.
If there was a fungi on the space shuttle inside, there was outside too for sure, and I bet a spores of that fungi are wandering in the space and imagine after a thousands or even million of years they land on a place that they can thrive, which we found out they don't need much to do so, and transform that place into a more habitable environment for a more complex fungi to start developing and reach a stage to become a more than a fungi but a plant
The recent videos are also as good as the old ones. So it was hard to believe a 20 hours ago TED-Ed video came to my feed and not 12 years ago.
Ted -ed sugestion to next history video: Los Angeles ritos of 1992
I was wondering what the fungi feed on until you said they were mixing it with cyanobacteria so we are talking Lichen. There is nothing organic in the regolith for the fungi to feed on unless you create fungi that feed off radiation or inorganics that make them lichen.
And one day fungi will give us faster than light travel too! Amazing stuff. Astromycology is amazing
With all the positive fungus based media being made in 2024 from Netflix's mystic mycelium movie and that mushroom themed kids show also on Netflix but also two animated videos somewhere on UA-cam About how cool and amazing mushrooms and other fungi are has lead me to the conclusion that Some people are beginning to believe that mushrooms and other fungi are the ultimate life forms and this only furthers it
And if I were to be blatantly obvious if you gathered all of the evidence and then told me that fungi were the ultimate life forms I would probably believe you.
@@jacekrall5080 mushrooms are pretty dang awesome!
Wait until you learn about their health benefits.
Now imagine if fungi are actually the most prevailing type of life across the universe
My two fascinations in one video omg
Scavengers's Reign😮
instead of a zombie-creating mushroom apocalypse, there will be space mushroom houses
I wonder how fungal houses would would stand against martian sand storms
Can you explain why these amazing technologies are not already used’here… on Earth? Sustainable houses, surely more affordable, without or little concrete, which is a major issue (sand, pollution, ….). What is the point of all this Space business ? Mining rare ressources by privâtes companies is one huge aspect, not the only one. meanwhile on Earth we are ruining our environnement and let the poor become poorer, and all of us with big Health issues. I honestly am more and more angry with these vidéos explaining how smart we are and close to conquer the Universe, without analysing the context , thé pros and cons, etc… Ps I do love Ted ed !!
Cost efficiency would be my Guess, the reason why concrete and plastic are so prevalent is because of how insanely cheap and good at doing their job they are
Fungi has always been my favorite group of living things for a reason ❤
I mean them aliens would love some shrooms though
Now I wonder if mushroom were sent to this plant to make it habitable before humans existed 🤔
There's an old sci fi book called Hothouse where at the end of the Earth there's a conscious fungus that binds with a surviving human and shows the human how life used to be
there’s people who study fungi, and there’s people who let fungi study them 🙂
Cancer grows slower in zero gravity. Amazing how many new things we figure out once good minds get up there.
So, Star Track was right? Mycelium Powered spaceships?
And they all said that the fun guy wasn't going anywhere.
When it all seems to be way too good to be true, has to have a catch but thank you for showing the brighter side of things!!!
The fantasy concept of mushroom houses for lil guys repurposed into a realistic yet sci-fi sounding future. This is so cool
It is theorized that every form of life is simply a fungus, that takes on many different forms. We simply perceive and reclassify everything to the point of seeing it as all separate.
Your videos make learning so enjoyable. Keep up the great work!
Mushrooms can be a good alternative for meat In space because it will be harder to create meat in zero gravity radiation while fungus can grow without a hitch 🥩🍄
Imagine tripping balls on another planet or on space looking earth from the distance. Mind blown.
"Space hazard beginnings" LOL! Nice and informative video.
Someone from NASA has been watching Clarksons Farm
I can imagine a future where only the composition of a planet and a combination of fungi will be enough for completely terraforming the planet
"He who controls the spores, controls the universe".
US Government:Fungus repurposed for housing
People:Is mould next?
I need a love death + robots episode about this NOW
Fun fact: That part about mushrooms breaking down rock into soil on asteroids, by the way, is how earth's first soil was created - with fungi:)
sudenly, the Orks near invincibility from 40k makes a lot of sens.
Thanks for this video it gave me REAL Hope❤
I wonder how it affects your breathing, if you were in a room made of fungi.
There’s a species of fungus that absorbs gamma radiation so these type could be useful for future space exploration like to the Moon or Mars.
Massive respect for the funky little life forms that dgaf about cosmic radiation
Maybe is a fungi-network out there that connects the galaxies.
I'm using this in my next D&D campaign.
Panspermia is how our beautiful planet formed 🌎 Nature doesn’t exist without fungi 🍄
Do Fungi still need water to grow and survive ? That seems like a big thing to take into account
If Mi-go knocks on the hatch of your space station you know your sanity will take a nosedive. at least Cthulhu lives deep in the sea.
By the way, how did the fungi grow on the space station in the first place? Did they start eating and digesting metal, glass, plastic, etc of the space station for survival? If yes then, how did they do it?
I always enjoyed Terrence McKenna's idea that psilocibin mushrooms came from space and form some cosmic internet between minds
Is the use of the Space Shuttle in the animation "irony"?
Why did the mushroom go to space...?🤔
To find out if it could truly be a *fun-gi* to be with in the universe ! Yes !🍄
lol !
Because there was muchroom :)
This sounds way to close to project Hail Mary
Very biopunk. Might use it in my Biopunk story.
The seeds for Xenomorphs
Damn, that's really some HIGH quality s
You could grow a protective shield, send a small amount up there and it can create its own, also use it for fuel? This has a lot of potential...
The Adventure of Fun Guy
This is humanity's destiny. Among the stars. I hope that I live to see a human colony on mars.
Can the Ted team do a video on lichens, please?
This is such a well put together video, brava
They didn't even address that the title is a lie
**Mushroom-infected hands typing furiously**
"yeah, people should definitely take us to other planets and stuff"
So cool, hopefully we can figure out how to use mycelium to its fullest potential
The inside of the station is literally made to house us, I find it hard to see why fungi would be any less able to grow in there.
I can't beleve i haven't heard about fungi being able to survive in space until now, that is actually groundbreaking! ...or maybe i should say groundbinding?
Eon Fung FungX space traveller. Mush room on Mars and other planets. The Fung be with you!
Man the natural world can pull off some amazing stuff sometimes.
As a w.d.o. inspector, this absolutely blows my mind.
I am doing master’s thesis on utilizing fungi as scaffold for water treatment. I was very surprised by the capability of fungi, we engineers and scientists in water treatment field were typically only looking at bacteria, but rarely or might never were very attentive towards fungi.
That’s very cool!
I always fancied the idea that fungi is the basis of our brains.
To fungi and beyond
What of we just randomly discover fungus growing on Mars somehow?
i’ve been told that mushroom visuals and thoughts get stronger when one is breathing a lot less, maybe oxygen does something to mushrooms that doesn’t allow it to be at its full capacity?