Disc Rot: A Ticking Clock for Disc Preservation

I'm no scientist, but when a couple of users reported similar looking disc rot in different continents - I did a deeper dive. Now many us know that disc rot can happen due to manufacturing issues - or even chemical reaction (protip: don't put clue on your disc labels), but it seems that there is a fungus in the wild that also can cause disc rot... and it has a particular pattern.

The pattern certainly looks like some kind of biological critter tunneling it's way through the disc data, eating desired minerals along it's path. The first photo is from Brazil (via one of our members - which it infected multiple discs), and the second from Belize, via this post, which also links to a BBC article identifying the Geotrichum fungus affecting discs in Spain. Another user in UK shared a similar but different pathway for the fungus (an evolution of it?), particularly the path looks similar near the transparent / centermost portion:

Another user from Italy found holes in his PlayStation 3 discs - which were in otherwise perfect condition, this would seem to be yet a different fungi. In addition, I came across an academic paper regarding disc rot from the Bjerkandera Adusta fungus species, which again identifies Geotrichum as the culprit.

If this isn't a great reason to preserve your discs I don't know what is. Do your part to preserve the data.