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Gift of the fungi: Mushrooms — yes, mushrooms — could help save the world
Earlier this month, mushrooms momentarily sprouted into the news when two studies from Johns Hopkins and New York University found that a single magic mushroom trip (a mushroom with the naturally occurring psychedelic ingredient psilocybin) produced immediate, substantial and prolonged improvements in the levels of anxiety, depression and hopelessness for cancer-stricken patients. The studies also noted significant increases in quality of life, life meaning and optimism for participants. Though studies measuring the effects of a positive mental outlook on fighting cancer are largely inconclusive, it was nonetheless a positive development...
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Gift of the fungi: Mushrooms — yes, mushrooms — could help save the world
What can't mushrooms do? From cleaning chemical spills to mitigating topsoil loss, they're nature's unsung heroes. By Samuel Blackstone.
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These Mushroom-Based Drones Eat Themselves at Mission’s End
Once the job is done, the tiny gliders are designed to disappear. By Tim Wright.
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Scientists find earliest intact mushroom fossils
Paleontologists from China, New Zealand and the United States have found four intact mushroom fossils, sources with the Chinese Academy of Sciences said Friday. The four, well preserved in Burmese amber for at least 99 million years, are the earliest complete mushroom fossils ever found. The findings represent four species of mushroom. A stalk and a complete cap containing distinct gills are visible in most of the mushrooms, which are two to three millimeters long.
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Yeah, Maybe Don't Use This App That Supposedly Identifies Poison Mushrooms
While Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are busy debating whether a malevolent, future AI could dispatch machine-gun toting drones to kill us all, a current-day “revolutionary AI” could get you killed right now. Truffle, previously Mushroom, is an app that claim it can “identify any mushroom instantly with just a pic.” Mushrooms are famously hard to identify, even by trained mycologists (scientists who study fungi), so an automated app seems like a risky venture. You know, because many mushrooms are poisonous, and if you eat the wrong ones your organs will shut down and you will freaking die.
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Scientists find fungus with an appetite for plastic in rubbish dump
We are producing ever greater amounts of plastic – much of which ends up as garbage. What’s more, because plastic does not break down in the same way as other organic materials, it can persist in the environment over hundreds of years. Scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the Kunming Institute of Botany in China have recently identified a fungus which could help deal with our waste problem by using enzymes to rapidly break down plastic materials.
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Plastic-degrading fungus found in Pakistan trash dump
Scientists found the fungus Aspergillus tubingensis breaking down plastic in a rubbish dump in Islamabad, Pakistan.
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This fungus has over 23,000 sexes and no qualms about it
Sex is extra strange if you're a shroom.
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Common fungal infections are 'becoming incurable' and causing more deaths than malaria or breast cancer worldwide, say researchers
Common fungal infections are “becoming incurable” with global mortality exceeding that for malaria or breast cancer because of drug-resistant strains which “terrify” doctors and threaten the food chain, a new report has warned. Writing in a special “resistance” edition of the journal Science, researchers from Imperial College London and Exeter University have shown how crops, animals and people are all threatened by nearly omnipresent fungi. By Alex Matthews-King.
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Is This Fungus Using a Virus To Control An Animal's Mind?
An unusual detective story. By Ed Yong.
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Magic mushrooms
From making biofuels to eating up harmful plastics, fungi could help us build a greener planet. Fungi could not just help rid the planet of plastic by degrading it, but by making it obsolete it, too. Research in the Kew report suggests that naturally made materials using fungal mycelia are being used increasingly often instead of more harmful materials such as polystyrene and leather.
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‘Bionic mushrooms’ that generate electricity created by scientists
A regular shop-bought mushroom has been turned into an electricity generator in a process scientists hope will one day be used to power devices. The “bionic mushroom” was covered with bacteria capable of producing electricity and strands of graphene that collected the current. Shining a light on the structure activated the bacteria’s ability to photosynthesise, and as the cells harvested this glow they generated a small amount of electricity known as a “photocurrent”.
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Can Soil Microbes Slow Climate Change?
One scientist has tantalizing results, but others are not convinced. By John J. Berger.
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Ikea to use mushroom packaging that will decompose in a garden within weeks
The furniture retailer is looking at using biodegradable mycelium “fungi packaging” as part of its efforts to reduce waste and increase recycling. It’s no secret polystyrene is devastating to the environment. But, do you know how exactly that is so? According to a fact-sheet provided by Harvard, polystyrene – which is made from petroleum, a non-sustainable, non-renewable, heavily polluting and fast-disappearing commodity – is not biodegradable, as it takes thousands of years to break down. In addition, it is detrimental to wildlife that ingests it.
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Billion-year-old fossils may be early fungus
When did the first complex multicellular life arise? Most people, being a bit self-centered, would point to the Ediacaran and Cambrian, when the first animal life appeared and then diversified. Yet studies of DNA suggest that fungi may have originated far earlier than animals.
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Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by ancient fungi
Newly discovered billion-year-old fossilised fungi are more than twice as old as previous finds, and suggest that fungi may have been preparing Earth's lands for plant life for millions of years.
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Scientists Genetically Modify Fungus To Kill Mosquitoes That Spread Malaria
The modified fungus produces spider toxin that rapidly kills mosquitoes, raising hopes for a new weapon to fight a disease that sickens millions. But not everyone is convinced.
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Brainless fungi trade resources with plants like a stock market
Fungi and plants have a symbiotic relationship in which they trade phosphorous for carbon, and the mechanics of this market are surprisingly sophisticated. By Daniel Cossins.
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A fungus makes a chemical that neutralizes the stench of skunk spray
A puppy pal that gets sprayed by a skunk is no friend to human noses. The nasty odor can linger for weeks or more. But at least one kind of Tolypocladium fungi makes a chemical that can snuff out the stink. Called pericosine, it reacts with skunk spray’s sulfur-containing compounds, forming residues that aren’t offensive to the nose and can be more easily washed away, researchers report in the July 26 Journal of Natural Products.
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Genetically Engineered 'Magic Mushroom' Could Treat Depression
One person’s hallucinogenic drug is another person’s antidepressant. Scientists at Miami University discovered a way to genetically engineer bacteria from the psilocybin (or “magic”) mushroom to help treat depression. If ingested, the fungus breaks down to produce psilocin, which has mind-altering effects similar to LSD, mescaline, and DMT.
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