one passage I read warned that anyone who got too deep into studying mushrooms very quickly started to sound like they had gone off the deep end …
Can confirm. I've been curious about mushrooms for years and joined a mushroom pick. There's another guy who is normal like me. But everyone else, I'm 90% sure are forest druids and like a slow zombie bite, I'm already seeing myself become a crazy kook.
This is the sort of thing the cranky old wizard says to the hero before inevitably teaching them about mushrooms so they can go on a magical adventure
Mushrooms took me on a magical adventure where I met a wizard.
Is this professor Paul Stamets?
You mean The Professor Paul Stamets, who wears a big hat that is one big mushroom? The one with a species of mushroom named after him? The one with honorifics in warp speed pop culture, and those who feed lemmings memes?
Cuz he's a cool dude.
The coolest. (That's a pretty big list, but still barely scratches the surface!)
I always liked the theory that fungi are actually aliens that came from some asteroid from another planet and have just been around long enough that nobody bats an eye at them anymore. I mean, look at slime mold and tell me that not basically Venom!
Have you ever heard about the blob?
It's a giant single cell intelligent organism that can move, learn, remember things, solve problems and teach others.
Neither an animal, plant or fungus the blob favorite snack is oatmeal but it hate coffee.
Is there really a mushroom that will make your body irritated because it's so similar?
Honestly, I'm not a mycologist, so someone with more expertise feel free to correct me, but I'm pretty sure that's BS.
The concept of a mushroom being generally similar to humans is total horseshit. What they're probably referencing is a mushroom with some signaling protein (or saccride or steroid or something) that is coincidentally similar some human equivalent and your immune system (for some reason) freaks out about it when you eat it. Then, as is referenced, the response to the mushroom happens to also be able to target some of your own cells, and now you've got an autoimmune disorder.
That behavior is not normal for your immune system to do, by the way, otherwise cannibals would all die from allergic reactions to their unfortunate meals. But, the immune system is complicated, so shit happens sometimes.
The way in which organisms recognize "their own" vs outsider stuff is a different and complex topic, at least as fascinating as fungi.
Liquid brains, solid brains | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Cognitive networks have evolved a broad range of solutions to the problem of gathering, storing and responding to information. Some of these networks are describable as static sets of neurons linked in an adaptive web of connections. These are ‘solid’ networks, with a well-defined and physically persistent architecture. Other systems are formed by sets of agents that exchange, store and process information but without persistent connections or move relative to each other in physical space. We refer to these networks that lack stable connections and static elements as ‘liquid’ brains, a category that includes ant and termite colonies, immune systems and some microbiomes and slime moulds. What are the key differences between solid and liquid brains, particularly in their cognitive potential, ability to solve particular problems and environments, and information-processing strategies? To answer this question requires a new, integrative framework.
Isn't there some conspiracy theory about how mushrooms secretly rule the world?
No. Stop asking questions.
Sincerely, the mushrooms.
For some reason, I now have the urge to bury you in wet shady soil.
There's a fun movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11881160/
Immortal mushrooms? Like some quill does? Googling it is spammed by "mushroom of immortality" because of some chinese legend. But may be the same thing.
So most fungi do have a lifespan, they have teleomere decay, and when you're cloning mushrooms (from propagating mycelia) you have to let them go to fruit (the part that looks like a mushroom) every now and then. It's a pain in the ass.
But like the other poster said, they play it fast and loose with which part you consider the "organism". My favorite thing is that they do cytosolic streaming. Genetics can be a pain on mushrooms because not only do they share nutrients and metabolic burden through mycelia, they can share nuclei.
One of the weird convienent realities we used extensively is that cells are big enough you can spread them over a petri dish with a little loop, and if you diluted the initial sample enough, the colonies that developed were, practically speaking, from one parent cell. So you could try to modify a bunch, and then plate them (spreading the cells around) and pick individual colonies that were all clones from a single parent. Fungi mycelia means the nucleus isn't stuck in one cell. It also means expression levels can be variable (some cells will have multiple nuclei, and then later maybe they don't).
Fungi are a godamn pain in the ass to study. They're not mysterious, they're not alien, they're just fucking assholes.
Being a mycologist sounds a lot like being a mechanic who works on German cars
Based on the Wikipedia article on biological immortality referencing species that live for a couple hundred years and the Wikipedia page on armillaria ostoyae mentioning living specimens that are multiple millenia old (and thousands of acres large!), I'm guessing that may be what the prof is referring to?
I'm guessing they're talking about clones?
Yeah, lots of living beings do that.
Not clones, more of a ship of Theseus scenario. A fungal network can be "one thing" because we see it as a single interconnected system. But parts grow and die over time. It doesn't have individual cells that are infinitely old, but the one wholistic fungal organism, as we define it, can live forever through regrowth. There are types of jellyfish that can also "live forever" in this same way.
And you cannot kill them in a way that matters.
I have found that a mix of olive oil, butter, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper makes their deaths matter a lot.
#transcription
hyperactivehedgehog
I'm studying biotech and every time someone brings up mushrooms our current professor will look either extremely excited or pained and go "listen.. mushrooms are neither plants nor animals nor something in between. They elude all attempts to categorize them. We do not know what they are. Some are immortal. Some produce life-saving substances. Some are so closely related to humans that eating them may cause an allergic reaction against your own body. I cannot teach you about the mushrooms"
But you just did teach us about mushrooms. Thanks!
I like lychen. It's a symbiosis of moss and fungus.
They can be even more complicated
https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2016/7/21/yeast-in-lichens
i hate this post because it's completely inaccurate and ignorant of the science, i have to link something every time i see it, like this thread:
Nuh. My links are stronger than your links
They are the internet providers of the trees
C? It's exciting.
