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).
Also there is the "museum beetle".Anthrenus museorum
How about keeping each item in its own airtight plastic case?
How about both of the above?
"When a mold’s takeover of an artifact must be stopped, there’s gamma radiation—pelting it with electromagnetic energy from radioactive decay to kill fungi and spores. But this technique penetrates deeply and can extensively damage materials."
> 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.
Up to this point, the tool that was used to detect every infestation described in the article was an unaided human eye.
The hazard is if the inert gas displaces oxygen in the storage facility. That can make them a death trap.
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."
Society wants to see these things, and learn from them, even though every moment they spend out in the open exposes them to more harms.
We're fortunate that digitizing has come such a long way. We can preserve and even recreate a lot of things long after the physical objects themselves are gone. It's not the same as having the originals, but at a certain point the reproductions are all we'll have left.
When you add up all the books that were required for our careers, would they be a megabyte?
The little that we understand is uncomfortably summarized this way.
But even so, there's so much archive material which hasn't even been digitized. I run into it in genealogy all the time. It's in some box in a museum, if you're lucky they made microfiche images of it fifty years ago.
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.
I.e. practice panspermia.
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.
Those two statements contradict each other.
It's a given that Terran life would be poorly adapted to the conditions. So native live would overwhelm it.
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.
If it's humans vs alien slime mold, I stand for humans.
> ou aren't going to see anything "take hold" on a human timescale
Right. Seeding life onto lifeless planets takes a long time, but it is a moral imperative. We are the only life in the solar system, and maybe even in our galaxy.
BTW, the Earth is going to fry in 100m years. We'd better learn how to colonize the other planets.
There is no intrinsic "purpose".
The universe itself is perfectly content with dynamics over timescales we cannot even approach comprehension of, and never will. The only driving force in the universe is an evolution from a state with heterogeneous energy densities to one with homogeneous energy density. "Life" isn't even in the equation.
Interstellar travel is not possible for humans. Even if we could somehow induce perfect hibernation, scifi style, how do you maintain an engineered vehicle in the abyss for centuries?
Meanwhile, we can't even take care of the abundance of resources here on earth.
Consider that the only reason you exist (and have wonderful things like air conditioning) is because your predecessors did have a purpose.
> Interstellar travel is not possible for humans.
Yes, it is. Transcribe DNA, put it in probe, probe goes for centuries, orbits a promising planet, then employs nanobots to build humans from the DNA. I.e. a seedship.
> abundance of resources here on earth
Our solar system is brimming with resources. All we've exploited so far is just pond scum on the Earth's surface.
The stigma they refer to is the reluctance of museum boards and higher ups to publicly admit they have a problem with their storage.
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.