Students
Flying salt shakers of death
Poetry and dirt inspired Angie Macias to explore buzzy, hummy cicadas. And the fungi that live to eat them. They are butt-devouring species of the fungus Massospora– coming to your backyard this summer!
ZAP! Lightning, Gods, and Mushrooms
Everyone knows mushrooms pop up after thunderstorms, right? Japanese mushroom farmers sometimes deploy electric shocks to get their shiitake mushrooms to fruit. So, what would happen if you wandered around in the forest zapping the ground?
Bully for the Platypus
Tasmanian platypuses are coming down with a fungal disease of late. It’s caused by a fungus previously only found sickening amphibians. A platypus is a strange and baffling creature, and so is this fungus, Mucor amphibiorum.
Moldy bread is cool
There’s nothing more fascinating than watching molds grow in time lapse. Or is there? This student post describes the inner life of Rhizopus, a remarkably busy and exuberant genus of molds. It is probably eating something in your kitchen as we speak! Today we admire the magnificence of Rhizopus eating your lunch, and introduce its surprising and extraordinary sidekick.
Of Fungus and Falcons
Sometimes I think fungi in the genus Aspergillus just have more get-up-and-go than other fungi. Some are good, and sure, some are evil — you just have to admire their audacity. Turns out one particular Aspergillus is a notorious enemy of birds, and can even take down a powerful raptor like a hawk or falcon in a matter of days. Read on for more about falconry and fungi in this post by Abby Duvall.
Ringworm in Cats: Percy’s Case
Old and well-loved cats get infections sometimes. Here is the story of Percy, a cat who has battled several different attackers in the last little while: two fungi, a mystery cat, a virus, and a bacterium. He even generously shared one of them with his human family. But don’t worry, they’re all OK now.
This bark glows in the dark! Bioluminescence in mushrooms
The very coolest mushrooms of all are the ones that glow, don’t you think? We don’t know, yet, how they do it, but perhaps there are a few different mechanisms, because we infer that bioluminescence has arisen multiple times over the course of evolution. Why? Well, we have some ideas. These mushrooms remain mysterious though: we don’t know exactly why or how they glow, but they do glow, and that is excellent.
Agarikon
The fungus Fomitopsis officinalis has a long history of use in North America and elsewhere, both as medicine and as a medium of ritualistic art. Read about Agarikon and its uses, and follow Fungi Perfecti President Paul Stamets on a successful expedition to find this rare mushroom.
Mushrooms as Sacred Objects in North America
Although surely many Native American peoples were experts on fungi, we have little knowledge of how they used them, particularly the more ephemeral mushrooms. Here’s a primer on three different bracket fungi (conks) used by some native peoples.