Know Your Mushrooms - Documentary by Ron Mann. Starring Larry Evans and Gary Lincoff. Plus The Flaming Lips did the soundtrack. Sounds pretty cool. Official site.
From the award-winning director of COMIC BOOK CONFIDENTIAL, GRASS, GO FURTHER and a host of paradigm-shifting films reappraising the backwaters of popular culture, Ron Mann investigates the miraculous, near-secret world of fungi with his newest piece of cinema, KNOW YOUR MUSHROOMS.
Mushrooms – we put them on our pizza and steaks and in our soups and salads, we marvel at their variety and are sometimes repelled by their grotesque beauty when encountering them in the bush. And yeah, some have even sampled their more exotic possibilities and asked the question: “Do mushrooms come from a far away planet?”
Still, others have asked: “Can mushrooms save the planet?”
Know Your Mushrooms - A new documentary
January 28th, 2009UK fungi get protection strategy
January 14th, 2009
Specimens collected by Charles Darwin are among the collection at the Royal Botanic Gardens.
A strategy to protect the UK’s fungi species has been set up by 16 of the nation’s leading conservation and research organisations. They hope to ensure the long-term protection of “the forgotten kingdom” by learning more about the organisms. It will also bring more than half of the UK’s remaining taxonomic mycologists together under one roof. Experts say that there are up to 15,000 known species in the UK, but many more remain unknown to science.
“Fungi support ecosystems, from woodlands to farmland,” explained Jayne Manley from Plantlife UK, one of the organisations involved in the forum. “They are responsible for the intrinsic fertility of the soil, nutrient recycling… and are vital for the health of the planet,” she added.
Omphalotus olearius: Another bioluminescent fungus
January 7th, 2009
Omphalotus olearius
Through metabolic and physiological functions, all living things must produce and ultimately dispose of waste. This fungus exudes its waste through its gills, and some of these wastes are luciferases. Luciferases are enzymes / secondary metabolites commonly used for bioluminescence (or emission of light by a living organism) such as in fireflies (Photinus pyralis). There are five commonly accepted reasons for bioluminescence: camouflage, attraction, repulsion, communication, and illumination (mostly in underwater creatures). As for why bioluminescence occurs in Omphalotus, I haven’t been able to track down a reference. However, for more on the particulars of this species, see Omphalotus olearius on Tom Volk’s website.
Dried Mushrooms Slow Climate Warming In Northern Forests
November 11th, 2008
When soil in these forests is warmed, fungi that feed on dead plant material dry out and produce significantly less climate-warming carbon dioxide than fungi in cooler, wetter soil. This came as a surprise to scientists, who expected warmer soil to emit larger amounts of carbon dioxide because extreme cold is believed to slow down the process by which fungi convert soil carbon into carbon dioxide.
Piptoporus betulinus: An old-fashioned sharpening strop
October 28th, 2008
Piptoporus betulinus or 'Birch Polypore' can be used to sharpen knife blades.
If you’ve spent any time in birch woods, you’ve probably seen Piptoporus betulinus growing on dead birch trees and logs, and occasionally even on living trees. But did you know you could use it as an old-fashioned sharpening strop?
Mycena lux-coeli: Bioluminescent Fungi
October 2nd, 2008
During the season of rains in certain regions of Japan, the forests begin to fill with small lights: in the trunks of the trees and the humid ground hundreds of bioluminescent fungi grow…
The Mushrooms in Ghana Project
September 20th, 2008
Shiitake mushrooms
In the US we grow shiitakes on oak and other hardwood logs. The whole process is organic and ecologically sound. The logs are small-diameter timber that might otherwise be burned or used for low-grade construction materials. We researched types of wood that might support shiitakes in Ghana. Bernard is working with teak. It’s plentiful and can resist the termites that took his first stand of shiitake logs.
Aspergillosis sydowii: Coral destroyer
August 29th, 2008
Infected colony of Gorgonia ventalina
Aspergillosis is a lesion producing fungal infection of Caribbean soft corals. It affects 6 species of sea fans and sea whips and is widespread throughout the Caribbean. The pathogen is Aspergillosis sydowii, a terrestrial fungus (Geiser et al., 1996), which infects gorgonia after germination of spores on the coral surface.
Cordyceps sinesis: India’s answer to Viagra
August 8th, 2008
Cordyceps sinesis, locally called `Keera ghas' or 'Yarchagumba'
Foreign drugs like Viagra and Cialis used for treating erectile dysfunction may soon get their Indian counterparts from a `caterpillar fungus’ found in the high altitudes of Uttarakhand.
The caterpillar fungus locally called as `Keera ghas’ or ‘Yarchagumba’ is said to have aphrodisiac properties, which will be used to manufacture drugs in a project undertaken by the Uttarakhand government, say the officials of the Herbal Research and Development Institute (HRDI) in Gopeshwar district.
Tricoderma reesei: From fungus to fuel
July 24th, 2008
Trichoderma reesei
“We were aware of T. reesei’s reputation as producer of massive quantities of degrading enzymes, however we were surprised by how few enzyme types it produces, which suggested to us that its protein secretion system is exceptionally efficient,” said Los Alamos bioscientist Diego Martinez (also at the University of New Mexico), the study’s lead author. […] On an industrial scale, T. reesei could be employed to secrete enzymes that can be purified and added into an aqueous mixture of cellulose pulp and other materials to produce sugar. The sugar can then be fermented by yeast to produce ethanol.