Plug for Forever Wild

As a person who spends a lot of time outdoors, I think it necessary to put in a good word for the Forever Wild Program here in Alabama. From what I've been told, the program acquires land using monies collected from state oil and gas leases (not taxes), which are then managed by the state for the use of all Alabamians, including hunters and fisherman as well as birdwatchers, tree huggers, and fungal foragers like myself.

Fungi music!

This popped up in my news alerts. In the British Virgin Islands, they have a musical genre called Fungi music. There is also a dish called fungi, but neither the music nor the dish seem to have anything to do with the subject that I prefer to blog about. It's pretty sweet though, as this YouTube clip demonstrates!

The Fastest Living Thing in the World

Once again, fungi are collecting superlatives. I had to check to make sure it's still considered a zygomycete (it is) but Pilobolus (not to be confused with the dance company) is reported to be the fastest living thing in the world. 

Zora Neale Hurston, author, secret Alabamian, zombie hunter; PvZ

I apologize for the hiatus.  Actually, there have been lots of mushrooms coming up gangbusters all over, with the passing rainstorms we've been getting, and I've been meaning to post pictures and comments.  So what shook me out of my quiescent period?  It was this YouTube video I stumbled upon, an interview with the author Zora Neale Hurston about her experiences with zombies (yes, real zombies from Haiti).  Though she claimed to be from Florida, Ms. Hurston was actually from just down the road in Notasulga, Alabama.

On rather tangentially related topic, I've become quite enamored of the video game Plants vs. Zombies, which features both zombies (not the real but the fictionalized type) and mushrooms! I know I'm rather late to the party with this.  The designers are quite creative in ascribing zombie-killing powers to an array of plants and mushrooms. In the iPhone version, you can cultivate a Zen garden, including a special section just for your mushrooms.  And it's got a catchy theme song you can hear when you defeat the game.

Mobile Leprechaun Remix

Happy St. Patrick's Day, y'all!

Just found this site via...

Mycorant. In the class that I'm currently teaching, Organismal Biology, one of the assignments that students are engaged in is the watching of nature videos and reporting on them. In nature videos, there is a strong bias towards 1. Mammals, and 2. Animals in general. There are a handful of good plant videos, but the number of good fungi videos I've seen is scant, to be judicious.

However, thanks to Mycorant, I've found Fungal Visions, a blog that has some nice videos of fungal biology. One of the first ones I watched, showing the divisions of the Fungi, is quite dated, though. So, perhaps if I get another lifetime, I'll dedicate myself to making films about fungi. I doubt that's going to happen, though.

Bear eating fly agaric

Came across this video depicting a bear cub eating fly agaric and having a little trip. I do not endorse the feeding of fly agaric to animals, but this is interesting and I haven't posted in a while, so there it is.

Alabamians gone viral again

This was in Huntsville!


While I feel for the poor lady who was the victim of the attack, her brother is quite charismatic, especially under the influence of Auto-tune.

Matango!

Coming soon! My review of this film!

Bacteria

Bacteria are not fungi, although like fungi they are microorganisms. Jonathan Coulton, a brilliant composer and musician sampled a KFC instruction video to come up with this catchy gem. What I learned as Actinomycetes are actually bacteria, not fungi, and now they are more appropriately labled Actinobacteria. They do exhibit a filamentous form which did cause some confusion among the taxonomists for a while.



I like this video and song, though I'm not a big fan of bacteria like I am of fungi. You can download the mp3 for free! See under Other Experiments

Some more fungal news

I've been slacking again. I just got back from a visit with my folks in Charlottesville, VA, where I had few fungal adventures, other than finding this lovely oyster mushroom growing on a tree on the Lawn of the UVa campus.

What else has been going on? Well, for one thing, Morrissey, former singer for the Smiths, decided he would launch into a tirage against Aer Lingus, calling it Aer Fungus. Grrr, why? Such a feeble insult! Clearly he knows little about the wonderful world of fungi.

In other news, a prime specimen of the white truffle was purchased by a Philadelphia restaurant for $4,100. The truffle weighed in at over a pound, and was found in Italy. You can see the fungal nugget in all its glory in this YouTube video.


Perhaps I should be looking for a job in the UK? A 90% drop in the number of mycologists may lead to more mushroom poisonings, according to this article.

And finally, an investigation into the abundance of fungi in mammoth dung has provided evidence that the decline of their populations was long and drawn out, not precipitous as would be expected in a meteor-caused extinction.

A little bit of prime Alabamiana

Okay, this has nothing to do with fungi, but speaks volumes about Alabama. It's so awesome I had to watch it twice, post it here, and then I'm going to watch it again a time or two.

A bit of Alabamiana for St. Patrick's Day

Some Good News about Mushrooms

Okay, enough rants. I've been a bit negative about how mushrooms have been portrayed in the news, even thought "all press is good press". I should just seize the opportunity to use the teaching moments at face value.
Here are some good news stories about fungi.
First, a video about how fungal mycelia can be used as a green insulating material:


Second, a study of Chinese women suggesting that mushrooms(what kind? maybe oysters) and green tea may reduce the risk of breast cancer.
What else can mushrooms do? Perhaps be used to replace potentially hazardous preservatives like BHT.
A documentary called "Know Your Mushrooms" is slated to be released soon, featuring music by the Flaming Lips.
Here's an excerpt (without music):


And finally, perhaps the best use of an acronym I've seen in a while; the Multidisciplinary UnSheltered Homeless Relief Outreach Of Morgantown (WV), or MUSHROOM.

Paul Stamets says Fungi can save the world

Here's an interesting TED lecture (warning, 18 minutes long) by Paul Stamets, which outlines several ways in which fungi are very, very cool. He shows how fungi can bioremediate toxic spills, provide anti-viral pharmaceuticals, control pest insects, produce ethanol, and solve world hunger. See for yourself:



Thanks to my good buddy Dave for forwarding this along to me!

Cool video of fungi and Fungi

Here's a video of an Amanita muscaria sporocarp (mushroom) developing. It's missing my favorite part, when the universal veil breaks up and forms the white spots on the cap. This is what makes it look strawberry-like, at least in the red morphs. But it's understandable because the videographer probably wouldn't have recognized the mass as a Amanita muscaria mushroom until after the veil had started to break up.

Sorry I can't embed this, the embedding has been disabled. But it's a very cool video featuring time-lapse photography of some fungi growing. The music reminds me of the music from the Mushroom Men: Spore Wars, probably no coincidence.

It seems like a good time to mention the difference between fungi and Fungi. The first critter in the second video is a slime mold, which is a fungus, or more correctly, a fungus like organism. Stinkhorns, oysters, and the other mushrooms are all Fungi. What is the difference? Fungi with a capital "F" are of the Kingdom Fungi (Eumycota), which all share common ancestry. This includes chytrids, zygomycetes, glomeromycetes, ascomycetes, and basidiomycetes, and most of the Fungi formerly known as deuteromycetes.

With a small f, most fungi were considered to be closely related to the Fungi at one time or another, but all are now recognized as being more closely related to algae, or protozoa (a rather nebulous term). These include the oomycetes, like Phytophthora (species of which caused the Irish potato famine and sudden oak death), or myxomycetes, like the slime mold shown in the video.

Jack Teagarden sings Stars Fell On Alabama and some notes on license tags

Here's another YouTube post, featuring the song that graces our basic license tags. Some folks prefer to cover the "Stars Fell On..." part with a "Heart of Dixie" sticker, and as of 2009 you can get the new Sweet Home Alabama tag. I, for one, love the song Stars Fell On Alabama, though I think I'm in a minority, there. This rendition of Stars Fell on Alabama is performed by Jack Teagarden, a trombonist who played with many of the luminaries of jazz including Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, Bix Beiderbecke, "Fatha" Hines, and Paul Whiteman.


I have yet to see the Nuked Vet tag, but I'll let you know when I do.

Not Alabama, but next door

Would you get your girlfriend a chainsaw for Valentine's Day? You might could...

BONUS: How to play Sweet Home Alabama on the guitar!!!

Can video