Archive for 2010
Four new YouTube videos have been posted at Fungal Visions, a site that collects and features videos about fungi (“Who needs viral videos when you can have fungal videos?”). These are on the BillNyeRulz channel although it is far from clear that Bill Nye has anything to do with them. I rather doubt it actually [...]
Tags: Fungal Visions, video, YouTube
The latest issue of National Geographic has a short but interesting article on the continuing crises haunting the population of hibernating bats. The article “Bat Crash” by David Quammen, and an accompanying photo gallery, is available online via the magazine website. The article webpage also offers a video of how photographer Stephen Alvarez photographed a [...]
Tags: bats, Geomyces destructans, National Geographic, white nose syndrome, WNS
A definite asexual or sexual reproductive cycle is usually a prerequisite for the success of a species. Mycelia sterilia have found a way to do without either. Fungi (a group that includes molds, mushrooms, yeasts, and perhaps some other organisms that don’t neatly fit into any particular category) have evolved various reproductive strategies. The majority [...]
Tags: mycelia sterilia, spores
Whether you collect mushrooms for fun, for food, or for profit, proper identification is key. Making a spore print to see the spore color will help to avoid mistakes. Some mushrooms are easy to identify because of their distinctive appearance. For example, the edible shaggy mane (Coprinus comatus) and the toxic fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) [...]
Tags: mushroom identification, spore print, spores, techniques
I just got back from four days of camping in the Rockies with about 250 6th graders. If you are interested in what those four days were like (cold, sunny, tiring!) you can check out my teacher blog at Mister McIntosh Says. The most recent three posts describe that experience. The location was High Trails, [...]
Tags: lichens, montane life zone, Rocky Mountains
Every once in a while I like to look around eBay to see what sorts of things are up for sale that a person interested in mushrooms might find tempting. A general search for “mushrooms” turned up a little over 29,000 hits. Not all of these are of mycological relevance of course. For example, there [...]
Tags: collectors items, eBay, magazines
A spot for the television program Law and Order Special Victims Unit caught my attention during a break from watching Sunday Night Football. According to the episode trailer at the NBC website, some toxic South American mushrooms are used as a murder weapon. As the voice over announcer puts it, it’s “the case of the [...]
Tags: mushrooms on TV, television, TV shows
There have been quite a few news reports so far this year about mushroom poisonings around the world. The biggest news was the so-called “mushroom massacre” in Italy in which 18 or so people died. But that turned out to be a bit overblown (from the mycotoxological perspective) since most of the deaths (maybe even [...]
Tags: mushroom collecting, mushroom poisoning, poisonous mushrooms, toxic fungi
It would seem that when one’s eyes are peeled for any signs of valuable fungi, the probability of walking off of a cliff seem to go up considerably. At least that’s the story out of Italy these days, as the so called “massacre” of mushroom hunters has resulted in 18 deaths, ten of which were [...]
Tags: accidents, Italy, mushroom hunting, mushrorom massacre
According to Are mushrooms the solution to the beach closings on Madison’s lakes? a coalition of local non-profit orgnizations aims to employ fungi as part of a plan to clean up the beaches of Lake Wingra in Wisconsin. Christina Cappy, a member of the UW-Madison chapter of Engineers Without Borders and one of the coordinators [...]
Tags: bioremediation, Lake Wingra, mushrooms, mycoremediation
I couldn’t help but notice What If Terrorists Use the ‘Zombie Ant’ Brain Fungus to Make Zombie Suicide Bombers? at Gawker.com: Remember that brain fungus that forces “zombie ants” to leave their colonies and march around feeding a fungal organism in their brains until one day it pops out and kills them? What if the [...]
Tags: Cordyceps, entomopathogenic fungi, Ophiocordyceps, paranoia, terrorism, zombie ant fungus
I don’t know about anyone else, but I have been enjoying the Bravo show “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.” It’s one of those reality competition shows (like “Top Chef” or “Project Runway”) but with artists competing each week on a different challenge. I like it because of the creativity and expression, and because [...]
Tags: art, Bravo, creativity, Fungus Study, Jeanne Greenberg, Miles, nature, Work of Art
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 [...]
Tags: Brittany Murphy, celebrities, Hollywood, medical mycology, toxic mold
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 [...]
Tags: Amanita muscaria, Bob Cummings, Vimeo
It’s been awhile since I got around to uploading some new YouTube videos to Fungal Visions. I recently took the time to look over the most recent uploads to YouTube that had anything to do with mushrooms, fungi, or mycology. There is always a steady stream of such things. Most of them are not worth [...]
Tags: Berkeley, Biofuels, Chlorophyllum, Fungal Visions, lecture, mushrooms, mycoremediation, video, YouTube
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 was [...]
Tags: entertainment, movies, science fiction, yeast lords
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” [...]
Tags: basil, downy mildew, Margaret McGrath, Peronospora
The Telluride Mushroom Festival in Telluride, Colorado (where else?) will be held from August 26-29, 2010. This, dubbed the 30th Annual Celebration of All Things Fungal & Entheogenic, features guest speakers Paul Stamets, Gary Lincoff and Daniel Winkler, among others. From the Festival website: A four-day intensive with workshops, slide-shows, films and lectures in Colorado’s [...]
Tags: Colorado, Daniel Winkler, Gary Lincoff, Paul Stamets, Telluride Mushroom Festival
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 [...]
Tags: essay, morels, mushroom hunting, nature walk
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 [...]
Tags: Amazon, bioluminescence, Brazil, Mycena, mycoremediation, Pleurotus, Taylor Lockwood
