this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Godel proved you can't prove anything. Don't think about it too hard.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But what if they cremate you? Better be safe and also swallow some mercury zinc batteries so your corpse will explode during cremation if they go that route.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I just wanted to say thanks ... I'm having a bit of a bad day and that genuinely made me laugh out loud

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Glad to hear it. Hope things get better!

[–] [email protected] 62 points 10 months ago

How do you know it's close to the end? Simple: just swallow plutonium dioxide and it sure will be.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What about the "weird black mold" ? Is this something real ? Like some radiation resistant mold that has been observed ?

[–] [email protected] 81 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

It might not be related, but they've found mold inside the reactor room of Chernobyl. Apparently it's evolved a chlorophyll like molecule that captures gamma radiation. It's literally living of the energy that makes the environment lethal to almost anything else (organic or electronic).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus#:~:text=Radiotrophic%20fungi%20are%20fungi%20that,the%20Chernobyl%20Nuclear%20Power%20Plant.

Edit. Just checked and it's not confirmed how it's growing. They do know it grows significantly faster in a high radiation environment. They haven't pinned down the exact biological mechanism.

Oh, and yes, it's black in colour.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don’t think I had this one on my apocalypse bingo sheet

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I, for one, welcome our new gamma mold overlords.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

Couldn't be any worse than the overlords we have now.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Oh cool so we have protomolecule now?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Badass. Was reading that thinking what about space applications. Sure enough there is a whole section on that in the wiki.

Appreciate you sharing this. Was super interesting to read.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Wasn't there some bacteria found in an uranium mine, enclosed for millions of years, that lives off gamma radiation too?

edit: yep. Those things could survive without the sun.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

So theoretically, there could be organisms living on the surface of the sun?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Unlikely. Biochemistry, as we know it, relies on a carbon-carbon backbone. That breaks down long before the temperatures on the sun's main outer layers. The electrons get stripped off, and chemistry, as we know it, stops working.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Eating radiation is one thing, surviving those temperatures is another. I don't even think tardigrades can survive that hot.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Wouldn't swallowing plutonium dioxide be the reason you end?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (2 children)

They're saying if you are lying in a hospital bed with a terminal diagnosis at the end of your days you should swallow the balloon.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

You're right. Also from what little I understand about radiation seems like you might want to take some more definitive action too rather than give the polonium time to finish the job. It would probably be more unpleasant than however else you were going to die

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Where do I procure said balloon if I'm lying in a hospital bed at the end of my days?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Keep one in your pocket at all times.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

Either way, it'll be shortly before the end. You can't lose this one :D

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

Or pay the graveyard to spray Roundup around your grave. That's probably the easier of the two.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

An ideal last prank for all you Andy Kaufman-types out there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Companies that make sealed concrete vaults would like a word with you

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

My plan was always to eat a bunch of gunpowder and ask to be cremated.