I wasn't sure where else to post this so it's here.

Have any of you heard about a fungus that eats CDs ? This was brought up at work by a couple of other people and I recall hearing something on the radio about a fungus that's originated in Bolivia (if I heard correctly) and that it eats the aluminum in compact disks. Is this for real or just another urban legend ?

Shadow

Sounds suspicously like an urban legend. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if I were you.

Such a fungus does exist. I have a CD here which has been absolutely "rogered" by this fungus or bacteria or what ever it is.

Basically the disc now has transparent squiggly lines across the surface of the disc.

It no longer plays at all.

Articles on the internet which state that this only occurs in tropical areas are bollocks.

I live in Sydney , Australia and regulary see this happening to my discs.

A geologist at the Museum of Natural History in Madrid discovered the fungus, which belongs to the common Geotrichum family, on CDs brought back from the central American state of Belize. (Full text here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1402533.stm)) :m: Peace.

experienced it too... doesn't seem to attack original cds though

ROFL

Next strain of fungus: Fungus that eats the metal in your car. Incurable "disease" that strikes your car! Imagine taking your car to the emergency room and crooning to it.

:eek: :eek: :eek:

OMG I freak myself out sometimes

But this "CD fungus" is really scary. It really is.

The RIAA's new attempt to stop piracy.:D

There are bacteria that eat metal, there are bacteria that digest all kinds of synthetic plastic some of which evolve just to eat those plastics, the fames nylon bug is a good example.

Here you go:

http://www.nature.com/nsu/010628/010628-11.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1402533.stm

~Raithere

" Next strain of fungus: Fungus that eats the metal in your car. "

its called rust isnt it ???

also, this CD eating fungus does eat compact discs that were original manufacture for the artist. Such CDs that I have had been eaten by this fungus include :

Kicken Records Compilation - Kicken Mental Detergent
Beats International - Excursion on the version
Telstar Records Compilation - Deep Heat 4
MMM Radio (Sydney) Compilation - The Next Wave
Rebel MC - Rebel Music Album

To name a few . . .

I havent had this fungus eat any CDR type discs, however I have found CDRs to be quite hydrophilic.

You make enough of something available for long enough eventually SOMETHING is going to learn how to eat it. Eventually something will learn how to eat polyethelene bags and we will have to find something else to put our groceries in.

uh oh..... beter look for a better medium for storing data.....

A CD made of glass and titanium or chrome film would do the trick. No carbon what so ever. It would last millennia as long as it stored safe from vibration.

Make them out of buckeyballs. You couldn't break them with a sledgehammer.

A CD made of glass and titanium or chrome film would do the trick. No carbon what so ever. It would last millennia as long as it stored safe from vibration.
Any source of explanation, please? Besides, it would be funny to make a CD from a fragile material like glass....

hey just like is funny to make a vinyl records out of gold plated steel disks, but they do it.
You use glass to replace the plastic and use titanium or chrome to replace the storage medium because these two have excellent oxidization properties (or lack off to be more accurate) but hey while I’m at it gold plated would be the best why not.

thanks for the explanation.....
But by the way, how can this be applied to CD-Rs? If I'm not mistaken, glass has lower melting point than titanium (I remember that titanium is, or at leat, was once used as a spaceship layer...), which means, burning process to reform the data surface will most likely 'melt' the CD itself....

Don't worry even CD-Rs don't run at temps high enough to melt the plastic plate, but this is not meant for CD-Rs and CD-RWs which have organic phase critical crystals that decay naturally. the process of burning data on normal factory CD is to burn it on the plastic first then spray on the metal, so here you burn it on the glass first then spray o nthe metal.

I hope this is a sufficient summary for your explanation:

factory-manufactured CD is made by creating the plate containing the data first, before coating it with transparent material.

Is that so?

And about the 'to-decay' materials for CD-Rs and CD-RWs, does it mean that data stored in those mediums are not long-lasting at all? Plus, is that why CD-RWs can only be written-and-rewritten for a certain amount of times before they stop functioning at all?

I havent had this fungus eat any CDR type discs, however I have found CDRs to be quite hydrophilic.
What does this mean?
Water can change the data stored in CDRs, or water can dissolve the materials the CDRs are made of (and from maybe...)?

curioucity,

No, the transparent material (plastic polycarbonate) is were the recording takes place the metal is sprayed on afterwards so that it can be read by a CD drive. Diagram below:
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/cd-crosssection.gif

Yes after several year the data on a CD-R and CD-RW (especially CD-RWs) will decay.

thanks again....
and another thing comes:
about the data decay in CDRs and CDRWs, does the decay de-functionalize (sorry if that sounds complicated), or in easier term, 'kill' the discs (or they capabilities to store data), or does it merely nullify the data in the discs?

The problem with CD-Rs and CD-RWs is the organic dye crystals they use. In a CD-R the dye is heated with a laser making it darker, the same for CD-RWs except the dye can be reheated to make it lighter or less cloudy (re-writing). The CD-RW dye will naturally decay back into its clear equilibrium form though this process is very slow at room temp. CD-R is much tougher but the dyes still decay from background radiation: over the years the disk will get darker and unreadable.

now if we could direct this fungus only to eat shitty cd's. hey screw that, we need fungi that will just consume the bad artist.

hehe... sadly, it's quite apparent that fungi cannot overcome the power of horrible musicians. you know it's tried with Madonna, obviously to no avail.

*sigh*

:D

wesmorris,

Can I dance with you in that funky psychedelic background you got there? :D

Originally posted by WellCookedFetus
wesmorris,

Can I dance with you in that funky psychedelic background you got there? :D

as a matter of fact, YES, you can. hehe. *wrings hands (you know, like mr burns? "wrings"? is that right?, eh)*

that is an EXCELLENT idea.

i believe miss Xev is due for a dance as well.

AWAIT MY DORKISH WRATH!!!!! YOU WILL ALL BE FORCED TO GET DOWN WITH MY AVATAR!!!!!!

Yes man! Great party, getting down with the phat beat!

Lets see about getting Xev to moon walk and we will be really partying then :cool:

More questions:

What are the diffs among those many types of CDRs in market? There are those 'common' ones, then the black, then the gold.... duh...

the metal plating reflective layer and the properties of the dyes are varying from company to company claiming superiority in certain aspects.

Where should this fungus come from?

If it exists, then the germs can deposit in the drive, especially on the plate, and all your CD's will be infected sooner or later, won't they?


But I don't agree wih people saying here that the fungus is/can be used by the Music industry for cheap limited-lifecycle CD's.

The lifecycle limited variant exists, and uses not a fungus, but an oxygen-dependant chemical process in the transparent material. Once taken out of it's vacuum platic cover, the CD will become opaque/coloured(?) within days or weeks.
The lifecycle can be determinated in a flexible way by the producer, depending on the exact proportions of chemical components.


Theoretically they could also use a chemical process started by the light, but then it would be mandatory to put the CD in a black cover, not always possible for commercial reasons. (CD's kept separetely outside the cover, in the store because of theft risk.)

But I don't agree wih people saying here that the fungus is/can be used by the Music industry for cheap limited-lifecycle CD's. It was a joke! Did you not see the smiley?

well, who knows bout that? commercialism has born lower quality things......

I actually heard that Disney was considering incorporating a certain chemical that destroys DVDs after a day or two (after being exposed to air of course). This would enabled consumers (*yay*) to rent and throw away their discs. A cool idea, I thought.

Exactly what I hate: Commercialism creates very low quality things....