Did Mold Kill Brittany Murphy?

Now I am not one to pay too much attention to the lives and deaths of celebrities (who the heck was Brittany Murphy anyway?) but when the name of one is mentioned in the same sentence as mold, I’ll bite.
There are many articles floating around today discussing the possibility that mold played a part in [...]

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“Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years”

It’s not everyday you come across a weird and entertaining movie featuring yeast. We received one from Netflix the other day (my daughter seems to have a knack for selecting unheard of, unusual, and darned entertaining movies). I’m talking about Gentlemen Broncos starring Michael Angarano, Jemaine Clement, Sam Rockwell and Jennifer Coolidge. The film [...]

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Anthony Doerr Strikes it “Rich” With Fu ...

A nice op-ed piece appeared on July 2, 2010 at the website of the New York Times. Not your typical, “this is what it is like on a morel hunt” piece, Anthony Doerr (seemingly writing from McCall, Idaho) gives us glimpse into what a pleasant diversion from the troubles of the world can be had [...]

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Bulgarian Museum Offers Fungal Showcase

More museums ought to do stuff like this. The National Museum of Natural History in Sofia, Bulgaria recently put together a display, The mushrooms – familiar or dangerous:
Briefly presented is kingdom Fungi – characteristics, distribution, and systematics. Photos and replicas show the most popular edible mushrooms and their poisonous counterparts, and how to [...]

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The Fanciful Fungi of JJ Potts

A couple of days ago, I was perusing some wonderful stuff at a local bird seed and garden supply establishment. It was like an oasis in the middle of town. The property took up a whole city block and was what remained of an old farm that existed on the high prairie that is now [...]

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Fungal Inspiration for Sustainable Neighborhoods

An interesting article at FastCompany.com describes a sustainable design project–What would you ask nature?
Thanks to a smart TED talk by biologist Janine Beynus that made the rounds a few years ago, books like Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, and new online resources like AskNature.org, more and more designers are realizing a simple [...]

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Myco Apps for iPhone or iPad

There are some interesting reviews of iPhone and/or iPad apps planned for future posts, but in the mean time, here is a run down of some apps of interest to the mycology community in particular. Note: All descriptions are from the developers websites or from iTunes.
Some of these look good, others… not so much. Based [...]

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Mushrooms, a Most Hated Food?

A blog called The Stir recently had a short post on the most hated foods. According to 9 Foods We Love to Hate, mushrooms came it at number 5. In this admittedly unscientific poll, the only foods ranked worse than mushrooms were anchovies, onions, liver and tofu. Well!
Fungus is a Food?
Now my interest in fungi [...]

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Gearing Up For Morel Season

Word on the web is that people are getting excited about morels. One of the guys MycoRant follows on  twitter has mentioned getting his gear ready and making a few preliminary forays to check things out. In fact reports are already starting to come in about successful hunts.
‘Shroom, ’shroom, ’shroom: Guess who went morel [...]

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Mycology Videos by David Fenster on Vimeo

Thanks to a comment from Lisa who writes the Mycologista blog, I was pointed to a video called “Fly Amanita” by David Fenster. I can only post YouTube videos at Fungal Visions, so the best thing to do was write a brief post about it here.
“Fly Amanita”  features:
The thoughts of an Amanita muscaria (also known [...]

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Basil Fungus Making the Rounds

I think it was on a cooking show on the radio the other day (or maybe just a news report) that I heard that a fungal disease was playing havoc with basil plants in some parts of the U.S. I figured it might be  worth looking into. Sure enough, a Google news search for “basil” [...]

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Lockwood’s Return From the Amazon

Mushroom photographer Taylor Lockwood has returned from his expedition to Brazil and the Amazon River region.  While there he was able to get some great new photographs of interesting mushrooms, including the recently discovered bioluminescent species. He reports that there was quite a bit of of local traffic in the area where these mushrooms are [...]

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Washington Mushroom Collecting Permits Available

If you plan on collecting more than “a gallon” of mushrooms in the State of Washington, you better get your permit. Details in Commercial mushroom permits available published by the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin:
Permits for commercial mushroom gathering in the three Blue Mountain forests are now available. The permits are required for anyone intending [...]

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Afghan Poppies Attacked by Fungus

Afghan poppy farmers, who grow a big chunk of the poppies used to supply the world with opium, are accusing NATO of infecting their fields with a poppy-killing fungus. They just might be right.
According to Fungus hits Afghan opium poppies:
A serious disease is affecting opium poppies in Afghanistan, Antonio Maria Costa, the head [...]

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Women Make Better Mushroom Hunters?

I do not know how Kevin Lewis of Boston.com found out about a forthcoming Evolution and Human Behavior paper by  Pacheco-Cobos, L. et al., “Sex Differences in Mushroom Gathering: Men Expend More Energy to Obtain Equivalent Benefits” but you gotta’ respect him for it. In his column, Uncommon Knowledge, Lewis briefly describes the [...]

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Cryptococcus gattii Infections on the Rise

It’s not every day you get clued in on a story of possible mycological interest by visiting the Drudge Report (FYI, to balance things out, I also check The Huffington Post). But, there it was–Potentially deadly fungus spreading in US, Canada.
A potentially deadly strain of fungus is spreading among animals and people in the [...]

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The Petri Dish Art of Klari Reis

It is possible that leaving an agar plate laying around the lab for a month could produce something akin to art. Or, microbes can be deliberately arranged on a nutrient surface to produce interesting images a la Nial Hamilton. Then again, when it comes to Petri dish art, there is no reason why any [...]

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Biodiesel from Mucor?

Strobel’s mycodiesel project maybe getting some competition from researchers in Spain according to Direct Production of Biodiesel from the Fungus M. circinelloides; Opportunity to Enhance Yield with Genetic Engineering:
Researchers in Spain have demonstrated the direct transformation of biomass consisting of the fungus M. circinelloides into biodiesel compliant with ASTM D6751 and [...]

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