Extremophile molds are invading art museums

I've isolated many xerophilic molds, mostly from caves around the US. As the article stated, the most you can do is spray ethanol on the article and wipe it down. That'll kill most microbes and prevent sporulation.

I'll have to think on this but I don't think there are any easy solutions other than just routinely cleaning and decontaminating the articles (at least the ones that can tolerate it).

The most interesting part of the article to me was that there's something akin the dysbiosis seen post-antibiotics in the human gut

> Through the 1970s conservators deployed biocides, chemicals—including antibiotics and formaldehyde—that wipe out microbes indiscriminately. [...] But just as broad-spectrum antibiotics can wreak havoc on the human gut by eliminating good bacteria along with the bad, biocides can open the door to even more harmful microbes by clearing out the competition.

> Scientists think decades of treatment with biocides in Lascaux led to the proliferation of a fungus called Fusarium solani that covered the cave like snow in a matter of days. The biocides are also thought to have allowed antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and fungi to grow unchecked in the cave, as well as pigmented fungi that left permanent dark stains on the Ice Age images. In Europe, the use of biocides is now tightly restricted.

This seems to have ramnifications far beyond the museum:

> Xerophilic molds can colonize human tissue in immunocompromised people—doctors found colonies of Aspergillus fumigatus, another mold involved in museum infestations, in one Danish woman’s brain, chest and lungs after she had been treated for leukemia in the contaminated wards.

This is the best thing I've seen from Scientific American in a decade.

Submerge them in drawers filled with Argon or Xenon gas when filing them away. This would also help to fireproof the artifacts.

Wow, life really does find a way. When we first find life on Mars we are surely going to wonder if it hitched a ride on our machines. One way or the other we will see life there. The only question is whether it is indigenous or transported.

Something I've learned is mushrooms or mycelial colonies, always find a way to survive, their ability to adapt to unkind environments is incredible.

Idea: For long-term storage & preservation of rare "treasures" (whether they be museums pieces, library books, national archive documents, or whoever), invest in oxygen-depleted facilities. At low-enough O2, nothing aerobic - be it bacteria, mold, bug, rodent, or whatever - can grow. Most can't even live. Gradual oxidation damage (paper turning yellow then brown, etc.) ceases. And disastrous fires can't happen.

Should be dropping packets of extremophiles into the atmospheres of the other planets to see if anything takes hold.

I.e. practice panspermia.

Is there a specific temperature and exposure duration at which freezing would be effective? This approach has been used against certain other molds.

If infestations are hidden because they signal institutional failure, it's no surprise these xerophiles flew under the radar for so long

Cold Atmospheric Plasma is a possible way to kill molds on artwork, non-destructively.

> Yet despite such high-profile cases, experts still believed that true xerophilic infestations were rare, a notion that persisted because the tools to detect them were so hard to obtain.

Up to this point, the tool that was used to detect every infestation described in the article was an unaided human eye.

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I've had to deal with mold more than I care to discuss.

The key is to keep humidity down (relative to temperature). There is a concept of "Days till Mold" growth. Once you're past this number all bets are off.

Here is a chart that shows Days to growth. If museums can stay in the "no risk" zone then artifacts should be good. If they fall outside that zone, then artifacts are at risk.

https://energyhandyman.com/knowledge-library/mold-chart-for-...

Example: At 85'F and 84% Humidity, it will take 7 days for mold to grow into your nostrils and reach your brain.