Archive for the ‘Tid Bit’ Category
I recently learned about a new mycology-themed film called Now, Forager produced by Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin. Jason is the newsletter editor for the New York Mycological Society. Cortlund and Halperin are experienced filmmakers and judging by the trailer (see below) this looks to be a quality project. The story follows a husband and [...]
Tags: Foraging, mushroom films, Now Forager
I don’t get out on many mushroom hunts these days, but with the record one-day rainfall of last week, I figured that over the weekend it would be as good a time as any to get out. So, on Sunday, September 18 we took a short trip over to Black Forest County park in El [...]
Tags: Colorado, Foray, mushrooms, wild mushrooms
I recently read The Vertical Farm, Feeding the world in the 21st Century, by Dickson Despommier (2010, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY) and I also got a chance to chat with him on the phone to get some information for an article I wrote for a magazine. Dr. Despommier is a [...]
Tags: Dickson Despommier, mushroom growing, sustainable agriculture, vertical farm, vertical mushroom farm
Awhile back I snooped around eBay to see what sort of mushroom-related magazines were up for sale. Today I decided to check out the mushroom collectibles category. Over 3,000 items came up on a search for “mushrooms” narrowed to the “collectibles” category, sorted into 43 subcategories. I expected to see the usual tchotchkes, and the [...]
Tags: decorative mushrooms, eBay, mushoom collectibles, mushroom memorabelia
The movie Know Your Mushrooms by Canadian producer Ron Mann does have some legitimately posted trailers on the internet—like at the official movie website. There are a few clips on YouTube but none them look all that “authorized” to me. There is this KNOW YOUR MUSHROOMS Excerpt featuring Gary Lincoff, which is still up so [...]
Tags: copyright, know your mushrooms, video, YouTube
I was perusing a magazine called Woodturning Design the other day. Why? Well, I have always liked making stuff and I had purchased an old but good-quality wood lathe and some turning tools some years back. Last weekend I actually set it up and tried my hand at it. After some initial failures I succeeded [...]
Tags: decorative mushrooms, model mushrooms, wooden mushroom, woodworking
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
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
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
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
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 distinguish [...]
Tags: Bulgaria, mushrooms, Science Centric
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 [...]
Tags: art, fungal sculpture, garden decorations, JJ Potts, mycoart, sculpture
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 truth when [...]
Tags: biomimicry, mycelium, nature-inspired design, sustainable living
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 results of [...]
Tags: gathering mushrooms, human behavior, mushroom gathering, mushroom hunting
