7 ms·

The Secret Lives of Fungi

107 points by Hooke 6y ago

tosh 6y ago
If you are into fungi you might enjoy this Joe Rogan episode with Paul Stamets https://youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ
cbanek 6y ago
If you're interested in mycology, I suggest you watch Fantastic Fungi from last year! It was really cool and had great time lapses! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8258074/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8258074/
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  Fantastic film. Also recommend the book by the same title, as well as watching almost any of the (Ted) talks by Paul Stamets.
  - derrasterpunkt 6y ago
    He was twice on the Joe Rogan Podcast, also recommended! https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1035-paul-stamets/ https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1035... https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1385-paul-stamets/ https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1385...
- firloop 6y ago
  I found myself not liking the film very much, despite finding parts of it educational and illuminating. Particularly, I found it really bizarre that it discusses the stoned ape theory without mentioning any of the criticism or prevailing theories against it. The movie just passes it (and most other things Stamets believes) along as unchallenged gospel. It took me out of it and made the film feel (even more) ideologically one-sided, despite the fact that the film is full of interesting detail otherwise.
  - saiya-jin 6y ago
    Yeah it turned weirder and more opinionated towards the end. If you are a die hard tripper/stoner then that must have been delighting, otherwise not so much. Visual side for the first part is stunning though.
  - n4r9 6y ago
    My wife is a plant pathologist and mycologist and had a similar opinion: "some interesting bits, is too preachy". The SAH has always seemed empty to me. If you don't propose an actual mechanism, do you even have a hypothesis?
hinkley 6y ago
One of the concerns I have is that there is a correlation between temperature and soil biology that appears to disfavor micorhyzzal symbiosis in warmer, wetter situations. And while building these communities can sink carbon and make for more resilient temperate forests, doing so may take more and more effort over time, or become infeasible in some areas.
wittedhaddock 6y ago
My roommate moved out, and we couldn't fill the room in the coronavirus world, so we started a mushroom farm making a couple hundred pound of oysters per week and haven't looked back: https://heartymushroom.com/ https://heartymushroom.com/ Stamets taught me that one cubic meter of soil has 7 miles of mycelium! I think we have a lot to learn from the digestive tract of nature :)
- eaenki 6y ago
  That’s very cool. Where did you get the spores? Resources for the whole process?
  - wittedhaddock 6y ago
    Agreed! I spend a couple hours a week packing bags basically and have found it as a way to relax. I read Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Stamets and subject myself to public shaming on /r/mushroomgrowers, got spawn from North Spore (though there are other several good ones I can recommend if you email me, would probably not recommend going straight to inoculate/spores as you need a more sterile env), bought a fog machine from a mini golf course, racks from home depot, using wood pellets (which come pasteurized as a side effect of pelletization, compared to pasteurizing yourself which is a huge PITA unless you can do it with lime in bulk imho), and a raspberry pi controller to monitor humidity to turn on/off fog machine
- Jedd 6y ago
  For 100% metric people, that means 1 cubic metre of soil contains ~11 kilometres of mycelium.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    Personally I prefer very-mixed units and contexts, so why not: 61023.7 cubic inches of soil contains 1.97984 nautical leagues of mycelium.
    - 6y ago
BlackVanilla 6y ago
'in 2014 scientists reported that they had grown oyster mushrooms on a substance made from used diapers, reducing their weight and volume by eighty per cent' This may refer to a study in 2015. [1] Along with Ideonella sakaiensis, bacteria which can also break down PET[2], there seems to be potential for nature to heal the wounds we have inflicted on it. Can anybody explain what is preventing us from expanding this? According to this article, 'bacteria are far easier to harness for industrial uses'. [3] What limits these solutions to acedemia and studies instead of being used to reduce plastic pollution on a widespread basis? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26291558 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26291558 [2] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/16/scientists-accidentally-create-mutant-enzyme-that-eats-plastic-bottles https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/16/scientis...
- hansvm 6y ago
  A good rule of thumb is that everything an organism does costs energy. If a bacterium produces the proteins necessary to break down plastic, create gasoline precursors, etc, then it likely paid for that with a reduced ability to defend itself or otherwise compete outside of a sterile environment. The energy/labor cost to maintain that environment for your bioreactor can be cost prohibitive (either in the narrow sense in which you put yourself at a disadvantage because competitors use cheaper strategies or even in the broad sense where, e.g., energy costs are large enough to completely counteract any environmental benefits). It's fairly common for the waste products to be toxic to your microorganisms (or to need a high concentration of the growth medium, etc). If that mixed output of partially digested waste, biomass, etc is not useful by itself (e.g. because it's a little less environmentally impactful than the raw precursors) then you're faced with the challenge of modifying or purifying it into something that is worthwhile. There aren't a lot of economically sustainable business models you can build around "healing the environment," however beneficial it might be. If you aren't directly producing something profitable (e.g. construction materials made from fungi) then your main path to profitability is to rely on donations of some kind (sometimes charitable donations or crowdfunding, usually grants or other legal maneuverings). Mind you, I think that has potential to be a great outcome -- tax businesses proportionally to the damage they do (banning practices we don't know how to clean up) and simultaneously fund businesses who fix it. That funding route is still pretty unpolished though, and any business pursuing that avenue is fighting a regulatory battle on top of any biotech problems. Etc.
mykowebhn 6y ago
As a former relatively active amateur mycologist, the question we hated hearing the most from non-mycologists was "is it edible?" Can't we be interested in fungi just for the sake of being interested? Why do fungi have to serve a purpose for most people in order to be interesting to them?
- r00fus 6y ago
  They're too tasty to ignore the edible aspect. Also knowing which ones are edible (and ones that are not) is a survival skill.
dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
Great In Our Time episode about Fungi: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3nwl https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3nwl

107 points by Hooke 6y ago

tosh 6y ago

If you are into fungi you might enjoy this Joe Rogan episode with Paul Stamets https://youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ

cbanek 6y ago

If you're interested in mycology, I suggest you watch Fantastic Fungi from last year! It was really cool and had great time lapses! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8258074/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8258074/

ta1234567890 6y ago
Fantastic film. Also recommend the book by the same title, as well as watching almost any of the (Ted) talks by Paul Stamets.
- derrasterpunkt 6y ago
  He was twice on the Joe Rogan Podcast, also recommended! https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1035-paul-stamets/ https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1035... https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1385-paul-stamets/ https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1385...
firloop 6y ago
I found myself not liking the film very much, despite finding parts of it educational and illuminating. Particularly, I found it really bizarre that it discusses the stoned ape theory without mentioning any of the criticism or prevailing theories against it. The movie just passes it (and most other things Stamets believes) along as unchallenged gospel. It took me out of it and made the film feel (even more) ideologically one-sided, despite the fact that the film is full of interesting detail otherwise.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  Yeah it turned weirder and more opinionated towards the end. If you are a die hard tripper/stoner then that must have been delighting, otherwise not so much. Visual side for the first part is stunning though.
- n4r9 6y ago
  My wife is a plant pathologist and mycologist and had a similar opinion: "some interesting bits, is too preachy". The SAH has always seemed empty to me. If you don't propose an actual mechanism, do you even have a hypothesis?

hinkley 6y ago

One of the concerns I have is that there is a correlation between temperature and soil biology that appears to disfavor micorhyzzal symbiosis in warmer, wetter situations. And while building these communities can sink carbon and make for more resilient temperate forests, doing so may take more and more effort over time, or become infeasible in some areas.

wittedhaddock 6y ago

My roommate moved out, and we couldn't fill the room in the coronavirus world, so we started a mushroom farm making a couple hundred pound of oysters per week and haven't looked back: https://heartymushroom.com/ https://heartymushroom.com/ Stamets taught me that one cubic meter of soil has 7 miles of mycelium! I think we have a lot to learn from the digestive tract of nature :)

eaenki 6y ago
That’s very cool. Where did you get the spores? Resources for the whole process?
- wittedhaddock 6y ago
  Agreed! I spend a couple hours a week packing bags basically and have found it as a way to relax. I read Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Stamets and subject myself to public shaming on /r/mushroomgrowers, got spawn from North Spore (though there are other several good ones I can recommend if you email me, would probably not recommend going straight to inoculate/spores as you need a more sterile env), bought a fog machine from a mini golf course, racks from home depot, using wood pellets (which come pasteurized as a side effect of pelletization, compared to pasteurizing yourself which is a huge PITA unless you can do it with lime in bulk imho), and a raspberry pi controller to monitor humidity to turn on/off fog machine
Jedd 6y ago
For 100% metric people, that means 1 cubic metre of soil contains ~11 kilometres of mycelium.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  Personally I prefer very-mixed units and contexts, so why not: 61023.7 cubic inches of soil contains 1.97984 nautical leagues of mycelium.
  - 6y ago

BlackVanilla 6y ago

'in 2014 scientists reported that they had grown oyster mushrooms on a substance made from used diapers, reducing their weight and volume by eighty per cent' This may refer to a study in 2015. [1] Along with Ideonella sakaiensis, bacteria which can also break down PET[2], there seems to be potential for nature to heal the wounds we have inflicted on it. Can anybody explain what is preventing us from expanding this? According to this article, 'bacteria are far easier to harness for industrial uses'. [3] What limits these solutions to acedemia and studies instead of being used to reduce plastic pollution on a widespread basis? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26291558 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26291558 [2] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/16/scientists-accidentally-create-mutant-enzyme-that-eats-plastic-bottles https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/16/scientis...

hansvm 6y ago
A good rule of thumb is that everything an organism does costs energy. If a bacterium produces the proteins necessary to break down plastic, create gasoline precursors, etc, then it likely paid for that with a reduced ability to defend itself or otherwise compete outside of a sterile environment. The energy/labor cost to maintain that environment for your bioreactor can be cost prohibitive (either in the narrow sense in which you put yourself at a disadvantage because competitors use cheaper strategies or even in the broad sense where, e.g., energy costs are large enough to completely counteract any environmental benefits). It's fairly common for the waste products to be toxic to your microorganisms (or to need a high concentration of the growth medium, etc). If that mixed output of partially digested waste, biomass, etc is not useful by itself (e.g. because it's a little less environmentally impactful than the raw precursors) then you're faced with the challenge of modifying or purifying it into something that is worthwhile. There aren't a lot of economically sustainable business models you can build around "healing the environment," however beneficial it might be. If you aren't directly producing something profitable (e.g. construction materials made from fungi) then your main path to profitability is to rely on donations of some kind (sometimes charitable donations or crowdfunding, usually grants or other legal maneuverings). Mind you, I think that has potential to be a great outcome -- tax businesses proportionally to the damage they do (banning practices we don't know how to clean up) and simultaneously fund businesses who fix it. That funding route is still pretty unpolished though, and any business pursuing that avenue is fighting a regulatory battle on top of any biotech problems. Etc.

mykowebhn 6y ago

As a former relatively active amateur mycologist, the question we hated hearing the most from non-mycologists was "is it edible?" Can't we be interested in fungi just for the sake of being interested? Why do fungi have to serve a purpose for most people in order to be interesting to them?

r00fus 6y ago
They're too tasty to ignore the edible aspect. Also knowing which ones are edible (and ones that are not) is a survival skill.

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago

Great In Our Time episode about Fungi: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3nwl https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3nwl