OFF: Scientist finds fungus that eats through compact discs

[Karen Kusic]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001851641145319&rtmo=lzFklAlt&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/6/18/wfung18.html

Scientist finds fungus that eats through compact discs
By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent


FIRST there was the computer virus. Now scientists have found a fungus
that
eats compact discs.

Victor Cardenes, of Spain's leading scientific research body, stumbled
across
the microscopic creature two years ago, while visiting Belize. Friends
complained that in the hot and sticky Central American climate, a CD had
stopped working and had developed an odd discoloration that left parts
of it
virtually transparent.

Dr Cardenes and colleagues at the Superior Council for Scientific
Research in
Madrid discovered a fungus was steadily eating through the supposedly
indestructible disc. The fungus had burrowed into the CD from the outer
edge, then devoured the thin aluminum layer and some of the data-storing
polycarbonate resin.

Dr Cardenes said: "It completely destroys the aluminum. It leaves
nothing
behind." Biologists at the council had never seen this fungus, but
concluded
that it belonged to a common genus called geotrichum.

Philips, the Dutch electronics company that invented the compact disc,
said it
believed the Belize case was probably a freak incident caused by extreme
weather conditions.