weird
Paleomycology: Discovering the fungal contemporaries of dinosaurs
Fungi tend to be small, soft, and ephemeral — properties that don’t exactly help establish a strong presence in the fossil record. But they certainly have been around for a long time (perhaps 4 billion years?). Here we explore some of the fungi of the distant past, including some molds preserved perfectly in amber for tens of millions of years.
Beneath Notice
Our new book is now available! It’s a self-published catalog of our last two years of art shows, which featured the use of a borescope to get up close and personal with small fungi. The borescope gives a fabulous, bug’s eye view of small things in the field, at a scale more fitting to their small majesty than a squinty hand lens or a sober microscope. We think you’ll like the book.
Fungi on Science Friday!
Eyes tired from too much reading? Use your ears for a change to listen to Science Friday do fungi in a radio show called “Fungi: the good, the bad, and the edible.” The show features your humble editor, Kathie Hodge, along with mycologist and author David Fischer, and guests Kelli Hoover and Arturo Casadevall. We field calls about everything from foxfire to species concepts and the extraterrestrial origins of fungi(!).
The Dish on Deliquescence in Coprinus Species
Inky caps are mushrooms that’re stately when they first appear, but dissolve into embarrassing black ink upon maturity. Why do they do that, and how? You can actually write in their stinky ink! How do I know the ink stinks? I don’t want to talk about it.
Beware! The Slime Mold!
Our intrepid reporter studies the science behind the movie, The Blob, debunking Dr. Meddow’s longstanding theory that The Blob is a mutant bacterium from outer space. Warning: this post contains actual ooze, plus a song that, if you get it in your head, will haunt you for days.
The elusive dog’s nose fungus
An encounter with a fungus that looks like a glistening dog’s nose, except it’s attached to a log and shoots out black spores. It’s rare in my personal experience, but is it really rare? How do we know which fungi are rare? Short answer: we don’t.
Furia ithacensis
Well now, everyone likes a dead fly, but I’m here to tell you that some dead flies are more spectacular than others. Like these gloriously dead snipe flies, exploded by a fungus that is named after my home town. If I were a birder, I’d call this find a “good bird,” and tick it off on my life list. Do you have a life list?
The Dancing Nematode and the Helicospore
Lots of small twisty things, entwined. Some of them are moving. What the heck is going on here?
Mystery liverwort fungus, chapter 4
The Friday Afternoon Mycology and Molecule Man are closing in on the identity of the liverwort fungus. In this episode we relate the results of PCR, question the eating habits of organ transplant patients, and finish up by chanting the DNA sequences aloud. But where has it gotten us?