Here's a possible solution to both the energy crisis and what to do with highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors: use the radiation as food.

It sounds like something out of a comic book, although scientists already know that fungi will eat asbestos, jet fuel, and plastic. It has also been shown to decompose hot graphite in the ruins of the Chernobyl power plant, which melted down in 1986. The plant's release of large amounts of radiation appears to have attracted black hordes of fungi. But how does it work?

According to Ekaterina Dadachova and her colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City, the fungi Cryptococcus neoformans and two other species use melanin, also a pigment found in human skin, to transform radiation into energy to use as food for growth. Researchers believe that melanin is present to protect fungi from stress, such as radiation, and that certain species use this molecule for metabolic reactions. Dadachova's lab discovered that exposure to radiation caused the melanin in these species to change shape, increasing its ability to impact metabolism and growth. The results appear in Public Library of Science (PLoS).

Dadachova tells me in an e-mail that the most amazing aspect of the finding is that this process is an alternative to photosynthesis, "with melanin playing the role of chlorophyll and ionizing radiation; the role of visible light." Melanin converts the energy from the radiation into chemical energy used by the fungi, she says. "The mechanism of this process needs to be established. It took at least two decades and the work of several research groups to determine the mechanism of photosynthesis."

This suggests that nature itself has produced yet another "alternative energy" scenario that is completely unexpected.

The uses of this discovery could range from a disposal method for nuclear waste to a food source for long space voyages during which fungi could grow using radiation from outer space, although future astronauts may not find fungi very appetizing. Dadachova suggests that the fungi might be used as a biofuel to be grown in high-altitude regions where radiation is prevalent and nothing else can grow. Does this mean that one day huge fungi farms on the slopes of the Andes or the Himalayas will provide us with fuel for our cars, along with fungi steaks for astronauts heading to Mars?

One other interesting aspect for humans: using melanin raises the possibility that this chemical also converts radiation from the sun into food for our skin cells, but only in minute amounts.

Citation:
E. Dadachova et al., "Ionizing radiation changes the electronic properties of melanin and enhances the growth of melanized fungi." PLoS ONE. 2007 May 23;2:e457.

Article in News@Nature.com:
Ledford, Heidi, "Hungry fungi chomp on radiation," published online: 23 May 2007

Nobel laureate and famed geneticist Sydney Brenner once delivered a somewhat tongue-in-cheek lecture to students at Cambridge University about how to nonsurgically create a centaur. He concluded that one day soon it might be possible to create such a six-limbed vertebrate. Mermaids and other mythical hybrids might be on the way, too, as well as human-dog drudges trained to cook omelets and happily perform useful tasks around the house, like changing the light bulbs.

This day has not yet arrived, but it may be inching closer with a recent amendment to a bill in the British Parliament that would legalize human hybrids for research. This legislation, offered by the British Department of Health, is a U-turn from government ministers who said last December that they supported a ban on creating chimeras.

Since then, a vigorous and sometimes contentious debate has raged in the United Kingdom between supporters of a ban--some religious, some not--and the scientific community, led by Ian Wilmut (Dolly the sheep) and others who insist that a ban would stifle research into stem-cell treatments. On March 28, a lengthy report by the Science and Technology Committee in the House of Commons endorsed chimerical research as part of the legislation reauthorizing the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act of 1990.

Wilmut and the other United Kingdom scientists are not interested in making mermaids--or mermen, either. They want to use animal eggs to grow human stem cells by cleaning out 99.9 percent of the animal materials from the eggs and injecting them with human DNA. These hybrids would provide a solution to the severe shortage of pure human eggs needed for embryonic stem-cell research, which now depends on human volunteers to provide eggs.

Advocates of outlawing chimeras (the "no to mermaids" bunch) were predictably outraged. Here is what the GuardianUnlimited website said recently about the pro-banners:

There were only 300 responses to the government consultation, with 277 opposed to the research--although many of these came from pro-life groups opposed to any research on embryos. But not all opposition is religious or ethical. Some scientists are also sceptical about the research. Josephine Qunitavalle, of the lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, told the Guardian: "One has to ask, what will they actually create? It is simplistic or even deceptive to say they are simply making stem cells. In order to obtain stem cells. They ... have to create a 'something' from which to derive the new cells. What is this something? It must be in some way human to be of any use to researchers."

Some scientists were also upset by the way the measure has been handled. Currently, the chimera clause is an addendum and not part of the main bill. The entire embryo package still needs to be discussed and voted on by the Science and Technology Committee, and then it must go through the approval process in the full House. Scientists also consider the legislation's cumbersome licensing process for approving hybrid research to be overly restrictive for this fast-moving science.

Two groups in the United Kingdom--at King's College London and at Newcastle University--have already applied for licenses to create embryos by injecting human cells into empty eggs from rabbits or cows. Their applications are on hold, pending the fate of the legislation. (See the GuardianUnlimited article "Human-Animal Embryos Get Go-Ahead.")

On our side of the pond, chimeras are not even on the table at the federal level: Washington remains locked in a pointless debate over whether to allow embryonic stem-cell research at all.

This gridlock has led to a ridiculous state of affairs in which our country has failed to have a meaningful debate about chimeras. Some states have allowed scientists to race ahead with this science, which may yield promising treatments, but it also has a potential to produce monsters.

In 2003, Panayiotis Zavos created "human cow" embryos that lived for several days and, theoretically, could have been implanted into a woman's womb. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota have produced pigs with hybrid pig-human blood cells. Last year, Yale researcher Eugene Redmond injected millions of human neural stem cells into the brains of monkeys afflicted with Parkinson's disease.

The inability of the Bush Administration and many leaders in Congress to accept the reality of stem-cell science over the past few years is creating another dangerous situation in which our body politic has not had the sort of political debate and argument that the United Kingdom is now having over hybrids.

As my friend Greg Stock says, hybrids are inevitable. But before we start making centaurs and such, we should pause and talk about the possibility in a rational manner, taking a cue from the Old Country.

Call before midnight tonight and have a full head of hair, guaranteed!

Okay, there is no number to call and no guarantee--yet. But researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have gotten us one step closer to relegating baldness to a thing of the past.

The university's reverse-balding process reactivates the genes, which usually function only in embryos, that stimulate skin cells to grow hair follicles. The team, led by George Cotsarelis, discovered during experiments with mice that when a mouse is wounded, its damaged skin can be induced not just to avoid forming scar tissue, but also to regenerate skin, complete with hair follicles and oil glands. The scientists tweaked the skin using wnt proteins long known to be involved in hair-follicle production.

"We have found that we can influence wound healing with 'wnts' or other proteins that allow the skin to heal in a way that has less scarring and includes all the normal structures of the skin, such as hair follicles and oil glands, rather than just a scar," Cotsarelis told the Independent, in the United Kingdom.

According to the article,

By introducing more wnt proteins to the wound, the researchers were able to double the number of new hair follicles. The research has implications that go beyond finding a cure for male-pattern baldness. It raises the possibility of treatments for acne, scalp conditions and hair overgrowth.

Since the early 1990s, scientists have known that skin can be stimulated to multiply hair follicles, but until now the process has worked only in a test tube. This has led to a competition to come up with the Holy Grail of hair: a molecular trigger to make this process happen in a living mammal.

Cotsarelis has cofounded a company, aptly named Follica, to develop the technology. It may take a while, but there could come a time when the famously bald will be bald no more. The list includes Jason Alexander, Yul Brynner, Kelsey Grammer, Andre Agassi, and Moby, just to name a few. Another famed baldy is comedian Larry David, who once said,

"Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man--there's your diamond in the rough."

Would David be as funny if he had a mop top? Would he be as confident if he had not had to overcome a shiny pate? Would his wife, Laurie, find him more or less attractive?

We may soon find out.

The bald facts (as listed by the Independent):

* More than 30 percent of men face balding before old age.

* Of the 100,000 strands of hair on the average head, at least 10,000 are in the process of dying.

* It takes up to six months for a follicle to produce a new hair.

* Male-pattern baldness is the most common: hair recedes from the temples, forehead, and crown. An excess of testosterone in the body is thought to be the cause.

* Effects of hair loss can be minimized by using hair thickeners to add body to remaining hair.

* Some specialists recommend massaging and stretching the skin of the scalp to promote blood flow to the follicles.

* Drugs used to treat baldness include Rogaine and Propecia. Both require a prescription and neither is available free on the NHS.

* Hair transplants are the most expensive solution, costing about $13,500 (£10,000).

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Nature citation:

Mayumi Ito et al., "Wnt-dependent de novo hair follicle regeneration in adult mouse skin after wounding," Nature 447, 316-320 (17 May 2007) Lett