Re: Dreaded fungus

From: Timo Sund <kyyhky@saunalahti.fi>
Subject: Re: Dreaded fungus
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 10:34:47 +0200

> How about "nuke the fungus"? ie short term microwave doses in ordinary
> microwaveoven? Enough to kill all living organisms but not too much to
> destroy negative any more.

That technique works for refrigerated food. For example, if you want
to prolong the shelf life of chicken, you can do that by nuking the
chicken every day or every other day for a minute for a kilogram or
whatever is enough to heat the meat to certain temperature. But this
is because food spoilage during refrigeration is mostly due to
psychrotrophic bacteria, which grow at refrigeration temperature but
susceptible to moderately high temperature. (That is, there are
bacteria that microwave oven does not kill, but they can't grow at
refrigeration temperature.) After all, I don't think this technique
works for fungal damage of film/prints.

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"Reality has always had too many heads." (Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound, 1997)