[ExI] Maximum Jailbreak, and the legacy of Stephen Hawking

[Stuart LaForge]

Bill Wallace wrote:

> My question about living in space:  what do you do about the radiation for
> the long term?

Simple, you genetically engineer your space humans to be black. Not
African black and not just the skin, but pitch-black and including the
internal organs.

Melanin, the same pigment that is in dark skin, is a radioprotective
protein that not only shields DNA from ionizing radiation but also seems
capable of using the energy in radiation to reduce NADH inside of living
cells.

Whenever you look at radioactively contaminated locations on earth like
the Chernobyl reactor, one finds all the fungi are pitch black. Not only
is melanin giving these fungi protection from the radiation, it is
allowing the fungus to use the radiation in a manner similar to
photosynthesis.

These scientists put melanin into fungal cells that didn't have it and
those fungi grew better in the presence of radiation than they did without
radiation.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000457

"Exposure of melanin to ionizing radiation, and possibly other forms of
electromagnetic radiation, changes its electronic properties. Melanized
fungal cells manifested increased growth relative to non-melanized cells
after exposure to ionizing radiation, raising intriguing questions about a
potential role for melanin in energy capture and utilization."


Stuart LaForge