Is it just me or does this seem completely surreal? Apparently Spanish researchers have discovered a fungus that eats holes in Compact Discs and thus destryoing the information stored onto the disc.

Now fungus is something that to my knowledge usually feeds on living things like animals and plants, so for a fungus to choose something like plastic for food seems very unlikely to begin with. And to add to that, a fungus choosing such a particular piece of plastic makes the whole thing totally absurd in my mind. But apparently the phenomenon is quite real because several well-established publications like Nature have reported on the thing.

It turns out that a fungus called Geotrichum candidum can bore holes into the polycarbonate with its spores and spread throughout the aluminum layer of a compact disc. This renders the disc useless and its encoded data unrecoverable. The condition is apparently rare, with cases happening in Belize and other tropical areas.

Geotrichum candidum is a common fungus that can live on plants and animals, including humans. It's not dangerous unless you are immunity-compromised, although it can cause some discomfort if it infects the human respiratory tract

The fungus bores through the edges of the compact disk like worms, filling up the data pits and spreading further along the aluminum layer. It is believed that high temperatures and high humidity allowed the fungus to burrow into the CD.

Iron Noder 2017

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.