mushrooms – Techdirt (original) (raw)
Stories filed under: "mushrooms"
DailyDirt: Magic Mushrooms
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Fungus is everywhere. One of the largest organisms in the world is actually a huge fungus over 2 miles across, growing in Oregon. Fungi might have even been the first organisms to live on land, and mushrooms covered the earth’s surface after the world’s worst mass extinction event — feeding off all the dead plants and animals. So it might not be cockroaches that inherit the earth, but fungus. And if we ever find alien life, it could look more like mushrooms than humanoid life.
- Mushrooms are often overlooked, but they’re vitally important to the earth’s ecosystem — helping to decompose all kinds of organic (and some inorganic) matter, creating the soils for plants to grow in, as well as providing a source for numerous life-saving drugs for us. Fungi might help us clean up pollution and get rid of various toxic wastes, so someday there might be another meaning for the term “magic mushrooms.” [url]
- White truffles are a rare delicacy — only found in the wild — with prices higher than gold. Other kinds of these edible mushrooms are expensive but not as rare, and the industry supplying these delicacies is a secretive and sometimes shady business. [url]
- Fungus isn’t just for eating anymore. Certain fungus species can be used to produce jet fuel. It’s still a challenge to scale up biofuel production using fungus, but it could be easier to get biofuels from fungus than from microorganisms like algae or from plants that need more resources for cultivation. [url]
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Filed Under: biofuels, delicacies, ecosystem, food, fungus, life, mass extinction event, mushrooms, organisms, white truffles
DailyDirt: Strange But Sustainable Food
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The world actually produces enough food to feed everyone, but there’s a lot of food waste and inefficient distribution in the supply chain. Obviously, it’d be nice to end world hunger, but we haven’t figured out how to do that just yet. Various solutions involve changing some of the things we eat the most — eg. eating less meat and more plants. Here are a few more wacky ideas for altering the human diet.
- The human body simply can’t digest cellulose from corn husks and wood chips, but some researchers are looking into breaking down those materials into an edible starch. Perhaps this doesn’t sound too appetizing, but it’s an interesting development that could recycle certain kinds of organic waste into more useful products. [url]
- People generate a lot of plastic trash — trash that could be digested by edible fungi. There are a few problems with trying to get rid of plastic waste with fungus, though. A small mushroom farm takes a few months to fully digest a relatively small amount of plastic, and the resulting edible fungi isn’t exactly delicious (or approved safe for human consumption yet). [url]
- Forget about fungi and turning cellulose into starch, how about eating some breadfruit from one of nature’s highest-yielding trees? A single breadfruit tree can produce 450 pounds of fruit per season, but not too many people eat this nutritious — but really bland — fruit. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: breadfruit, cellulose, diet, edible, food, food waste, fungi, mushrooms, organic waste, plastics, recycling, starch
DailyDirt: Useful Fungus
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Fungus is a fascinating form of life. Mold grows almost anywhere, and it can survive some pretty extreme conditions. However, more often than not, it’s considered a nuisance that needs to be killed and removed. Some mushroom-lovers have come up with some ways to make fungus useful for us — taking advantage of how well mold can grow. Here are just a few examples of fungus that isn’t for eating, but still serves us.
- Maybe we can use fungi to clean up dispersed radioactive waste — Cladosporium sphaerospermum is a species of fungus that thrives in radioactive environments (near Chernobyl, for example). These kinds of fungus could help people collect and concentrate radioactive materials to prevent the spread of toxic radiation. [url]
- Mushroom insulation has similar insulating abilities as foam board insulation, but it can be composted (and made without the direct use of petrochemicals). Mushroom insulation can also have the same fire resistance as conventional materials, but presumably it isn’t as toxic. [url]
- One of the often-repeated examples of futuristic engineering is the ability to “grow a house” — and that possibility could become a reality with fungus growing into pre-determined shapes. The MyceliumChair is a step towards growing furniture with fungus and a 3D printed scaffold. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: 3d printing, biology, fungus, furniture, insulation, mold, mushrooms, myceliumchair, radioactivity