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.
From the perspective of an archive, library, or museum preservation isn't really the goal in itself, just a strictly mandatory prerequisite. The pieces have to be made available to researchers (and depending on the institution the public) for the archive to be able to consider itself fulfilling its mission.
There is kind of a cost/preservation/accessibility triangle with curatorial preservation, and museums already normally choose storage that is somewhere other than the most expensive/best preservation corner of that triangle. Oxygen-depleted facilities significantly extend that corner, but if we're already not using what we have there then it may not be a useful addition.
Low-oxygen environments also have their own preservation issues. I'm not actually a museum curator so I don't know the specifics. But it is a very complex and old discipline and they've tried just about everything. The problem is usually funding, which unfortunately boils this whole thing down to another boring "you can't solve social problems with technical solutions."
That was a tremendous video. Cars stored in a robotic nitrogen-filled facility where they can only be retrieved by robots; a two-turbine dyno room; wow. It's wild that places like this exist in the world.
xerophiles can also be anaerobic. Certain Aspergillus can even show certain adaptations for anaerobic conditions. I wonder if we would just be pushing their evolution in that direction
EDIT: Aspergillus penicillioides is mentioned in the article and it can survive in both anaerobic and aerobic conditions
Maybe the real trick is to have sufficient control over the humidity and atmospheric gases so that as soon as a particular fungal species starts to take root, you can change to a different parameter setting which wipes it out.
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.
Knowing nothing about microbiology or mycology, it does make you wonder whether some “benign” outcompeting molds can be engineered, even if strict humidity control wouldn’t be allowed anymore.
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.
Wow, you should go tell those highly specialised conservators with decades of experience this. It's incredible that you know more than them! You're so smart.
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 real issue is that we have created a vast niche environment, lots of peculiar aged organics, in an otherwise "sterile" environment, and these conditions are almost identical over the internal volume of the worlds museums, and things are moved around, from each to each, in little bubbles,microbe ships, carefully protected.
Also there is the "museum beetle".Anthrenus museorum
I didn't downvote you. However, there are ethical and moral quandaries to doing that. What if you accidentally wipe out existing, undetected life on that planet?
You aren't going to see anything "take hold" on a human timescale. Evolution takes place over geological time. By the time there's something to observe, there might be no one to observe it. Or all knowledge of the experiment might be lost.
That destroys any possibility of finding out if there was or is life on other planets. Life that would be better evolved to handle the conditions.
It is also unlikely to do anything. The conditions are well beyond anything on Earth. Mars is near vacuum; life has survived in vacuum but didn't grow. Titan has liquid organics, but is really cold and microorganisms don't really handle hydrocarbons.
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.
> 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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[ 11.3 ms ] story [ 54.5 ms ] threadThere is kind of a cost/preservation/accessibility triangle with curatorial preservation, and museums already normally choose storage that is somewhere other than the most expensive/best preservation corner of that triangle. Oxygen-depleted facilities significantly extend that corner, but if we're already not using what we have there then it may not be a useful addition.
Low-oxygen environments also have their own preservation issues. I'm not actually a museum curator so I don't know the specifics. But it is a very complex and old discipline and they've tried just about everything. The problem is usually funding, which unfortunately boils this whole thing down to another boring "you can't solve social problems with technical solutions."
EDIT: Aspergillus penicillioides is mentioned in the article and it can survive in both anaerobic and aerobic conditions
Turning museums into a Resident Evil house is a cool idea.
> 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.
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.
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).
How about keeping each item in its own airtight plastic case?
How about both of the above?
Also there is the "museum beetle".Anthrenus museorum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_beetle
I.e. practice panspermia.
You aren't going to see anything "take hold" on a human timescale. Evolution takes place over geological time. By the time there's something to observe, there might be no one to observe it. Or all knowledge of the experiment might be lost.
It is also unlikely to do anything. The conditions are well beyond anything on Earth. Mars is near vacuum; life has survived in vacuum but didn't grow. Titan has liquid organics, but is really cold and microorganisms don't really handle hydrocarbons.
Up to this point, the tool that was used to detect every infestation described in the article was an unaided human eye.