The Lemon Fool

https://www.rsb.org.uk/biologist-featur ... kfast#ref1

In the late 1980s Ukrainian scientists studying the dark, dangerous interior of Chernobyl’s destroyed Reactor 4 found that a black, mould-like fungus was growing across the walls and in pools of radioactive water. The fungus was not just surviving the immense radiation levels in the reactor building, but seemed to be thriving – even growing towards the very highest levels of gamma radiation.

I recall that people used to keep streptocarpus plants beside their televisions in the 1980s, because it had been claimed that the gamma radiation from the old CRT screens would promote strong growth and encourage flowering. We tried it, and it did seem to be working quite well!

It might, of course, have been simply that old tellies got warm in a way that doesn't happen these days. But dammit, a generation raised on Quatermass wanted bigger thrills than that. More recently, a Tennessee potato has been reared which can detect gamma radiation (https://www.potatobusiness.com/trends-n ... radiation/), so there must be something in it. Mustn't there?

BJ