Word: fungused
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...surprisingly fragile. Five years ago, after the ill-conceived installation of new climatic equipment, Lascaux suffered a fungal infection that threatened to destroy in a few years what thousands of years had left largely unscathed. The cave's custodians are still struggling to eradicate this scourge, a nasty fungus called Fusarium solani. Access is strictly limited; TIME was allowed to visit the cave because its keepers feel they finally have the outbreak under control. But to keep the fungus in retreat, a team of restorers enters the cave every two weeks--dressed, as everyone who enters now must...
...machinery may not be what introduced the fungus to the cave. Isabelle Pallot-Frossard, director of the LRMH, says that the presence of formaldehyde--used for decades as a foot wash to prevent fungal infections--may have killed off many other organisms present in Lascaux that might have prevented the explosion of fusarium. "The fusarium strains we found in the cave are extremely resistant to formaldehyde, unlike strains from elsewhere," says Pallot-Frossard. "It didn't come from outside, but had been there all along. All it needed was a slight modification in climate to take...
...fusarium appeared unscathed: scientists later learned that it lived in diabolical symbiosis with a bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens, which was degrading the fungicide. So the restorers added antibiotics to the mix in which they soaked bandages to plaster the lower walls of the cave. Tons of quicklime, which kills fungus but also temporarily raised the cave's ambient temperature, was spread on the floor. Since the worst of the infection has been brought under control, the team now relies on "mechanical removal"--that is, carefully plucking the filaments from the wall by hand...
...disordered work site as long as we were there," but says masons and carpenters may have followed. When she first arrived, Godin says, she was flying blind: "I was like a fireman, with no documents, no instructions, nothing," she says. In September, the lrmh identified the fungus as Fusarium solani, a virulent mold that commonly infects soil and crops and often proves so drug-resistant that whole crop fields must be dug up and burned. Not everyone is convinced that the fungus entered the cave on the thick soles of contractors' boots. Isabelle Pallot-Frossard, director of the lrmh, says...
...cave paintings' power. And anyone determined and patient enough could successfully petition the authorities for permission to visit the real cave. The only precaution was to walk through a trough of formaldehyde solution - the regimen which Pallot-Frossard of the lrmh suggests may have inadvertently enabled the fusarium fungus to flourish...