Actually, when I was thinking up Vega 12 I thought that the gloves and hat are purely to protect from the radiation. The plants feed on it, though many die due to atmospheric fluxuations or simply too much or too little of the radiation gathering chemical, that's why they're sporadically placed. This protective wear is used to cover exposed areas during very short-term trips out onto the surface. A full body-suit version is used for longer excursions. They cant just have everyone wear them in fear of exhausting resources, and enforced growth invariably produces an inferior plant which has led to major health issues causing a ban on this sort of farming. The threshold of radiation intake between too little and too much, varies from plant to plant and they have yet to discover what determines that. so they have to rely on nature to find that balance, and so the plants are picked wild. Simply breeding a more durable plant or manipulating the genes to create that plant has led to a series of failures as the plants experience rapid growth and die from the lack of radiation. Finding the key is still a mystery, and the one who figures it out will be rich.
When cut from the main plant, leaves have been known to maintain their radiation aborbing properties for a month, but most shrivel up within a week. There are studies that suggest that the more radiation these leaves recieve, the longer they last.
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It's all probably hideously scientifically ridiculous, but that's what I was thinking with the planet.
but anyway, we'll go with triffid killing Kung Fu pandas. It's a cool idea.
And I'll post tomorrow when I wake up