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The article claims the mushrooms break down heavy metals. How do they do that? I know there are marine bacteria that can convert mercury into a less toxic form

The article claims the mushrooms break down heavy metals. How do they do that? I know there are marine bacteria that can convert mercury into a less toxic form, but I am surprised some mushrooms can convert ALL the toxic heavy metals in our bodies into something less toxic.

yongjik 7y ago
According to Wikipedia on the lead designer: > She earned a B.A. degree in psychology from Wellesley College (1998) and an M.S. degree in visual studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006). My bet is that this doesn't really work, or, well, maybe it does, in the exact same way a buried dead body eventually decomposes.
- steve19 7y ago
  That was my first thought. If a body is not pumped full of preservatives, it would surely grow all sort of fungus and bacteria like any other dead aminal buried in the ground.
- chillingeffect 7y ago
  I can give away the entire game here. I was in her class when Jae-Rhim designed this project. It was a class taught by [sic] Kzysztof Wodczizco called "Interrogative Design." He was at MIT then and is at Harvard now. [a] The whole point of Kzyzstof's Interrogative Design practice is to design something half-ass and make it seem serious as hell to get people talking and improving the idea. It "asks a question." It's not taking the piss out of the audience, because the audience is already lulled into a consumer trance of evaluating every possible purchase and can generally be led into doing the problem-solving work. In fact, it's mainly taking the piss out of the artists because half the time they think their design will actually work. Wodiczko has incredible cache from being part of the resistance to Communism in Poland. He impressed me, but made me incredibly cynical. Like many designers, he practiced an ideology that brought his audience so close to understanding life through aesthetic and psychological principles (bit of Jung, bit of Deleuze, bit of Steve Jobs), but ultimately left them cold, positioning himself as a thought leader, expecting the rest of the world to complete his projects, using their imagination and the money he gets from universities. For instance, when I took the class, he was obsessed with Moses and viewed the bible as a design exercise. He wanted us to come up with something as persuasive as the stone tablets. I guess I'm just another idealistic geek who thinks technical facts matter and people can do the right thing without being led around by fairie tales. [a] https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/person/krzysztof-wodiczko/ https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/person/krzysztof-wodiczko/
  - fjsolwmv 7y ago
    The next generation of laziness? Fake Itt Til Someone Else Makes It.
sergioisidoro 7y ago
They don't. Mycelium can decompose some very complex carbohydrates like oils spills, but that's as far as they go. They will, however, absorve and concentrate those heavy metals. You would need to remove the mushrooms and dispose or recycle the heavy metals. It's worth to mention that such suit could be a health hazard if people would eat the mushrooms of the decomposing body. - https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0cf9/889e0d096b66a1c93001149e16f9d9132516.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0cf9/889e0d096b66a1c9300114...
pastor_elm 7y ago
The article just says it cleanses the body of them. I assume that means it just takes up the heavy metals.

yongjik 7y ago

According to Wikipedia on the lead designer: > She earned a B.A. degree in psychology from Wellesley College (1998) and an M.S. degree in visual studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006). My bet is that this doesn't really work, or, well, maybe it does, in the exact same way a buried dead body eventually decomposes.

steve19 7y ago
That was my first thought. If a body is not pumped full of preservatives, it would surely grow all sort of fungus and bacteria like any other dead aminal buried in the ground.
chillingeffect 7y ago
I can give away the entire game here. I was in her class when Jae-Rhim designed this project. It was a class taught by [sic] Kzysztof Wodczizco called "Interrogative Design." He was at MIT then and is at Harvard now. [a] The whole point of Kzyzstof's Interrogative Design practice is to design something half-ass and make it seem serious as hell to get people talking and improving the idea. It "asks a question." It's not taking the piss out of the audience, because the audience is already lulled into a consumer trance of evaluating every possible purchase and can generally be led into doing the problem-solving work. In fact, it's mainly taking the piss out of the artists because half the time they think their design will actually work. Wodiczko has incredible cache from being part of the resistance to Communism in Poland. He impressed me, but made me incredibly cynical. Like many designers, he practiced an ideology that brought his audience so close to understanding life through aesthetic and psychological principles (bit of Jung, bit of Deleuze, bit of Steve Jobs), but ultimately left them cold, positioning himself as a thought leader, expecting the rest of the world to complete his projects, using their imagination and the money he gets from universities. For instance, when I took the class, he was obsessed with Moses and viewed the bible as a design exercise. He wanted us to come up with something as persuasive as the stone tablets. I guess I'm just another idealistic geek who thinks technical facts matter and people can do the right thing without being led around by fairie tales. [a] https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/person/krzysztof-wodiczko/ https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/person/krzysztof-wodiczko/
- fjsolwmv 7y ago
  The next generation of laziness? Fake Itt Til Someone Else Makes It.

sergioisidoro 7y ago

They don't. Mycelium can decompose some very complex carbohydrates like oils spills, but that's as far as they go. They will, however, absorve and concentrate those heavy metals. You would need to remove the mushrooms and dispose or recycle the heavy metals. It's worth to mention that such suit could be a health hazard if people would eat the mushrooms of the decomposing body. - https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0cf9/889e0d096b66a1c93001149e16f9d9132516.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0cf9/889e0d096b66a1c9300114...

pastor_elm 7y ago

The article just says it cleanses the body of them. I assume that means it just takes up the heavy metals.