A shortcut! A shortcut to what? The mushrooms. They're more than just a pizza
topping.
Welcome to WatchMojo's top five facts. In today's installment we're counting down
our picks for the top five most interesting and groundbreaking facts
about mushrooms and the world of fungi.
- So this gives us a very good starting point towards making battery materials
- Know our focus will not be on magic mushrooms but instead the biological
aspects of our fungal friends. If hallucinogens are a topic on which you
would like to be enlightened,
well we've got a top five facts video about that topic too - it's trippy.
- I am freaking out, man.
- You are freaking out, man.
Number five: The largest known organism on earth is a fungus. Take that, blue
whales!
- It's just that - well - I might me hungry.
- Don't worry whales don't eat clown fish, they eat krill.
- Swim away!
- Oh look! Krill!
- "Armillaria gallica" or honey mushroom, as it's called in the streets,
has achieved this prestigious accolade.
Don't go picturing some monstrous mushroom towering above the forest.
This guy is spread out wide covering over 3.7 square miles in eastern Oregon,
and weighing an estimated 7,500 tons or more, its mass is mostly made up of
rhizomorphs, fungi's underground route-like system.
It's also killed thousands of trees which may or may not be considered a
good thing depending on how you look at it.
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The circle of life in the forest requires fungi to rot organisms and
recycle them back into the soil, and this colossal machine does so at an
astounding rate. A representative from the Department of Natural Resources
called it "the baddest fungus on the block."
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It didn't just spring up overnight, though. Through genetic testing,
scientists have estimated its the age at between 1900 and 8650 years old.
Number 4: Fungi inherited the earth. Millions of years
before green and orange mushrooms gave Mario and Luigi a new lease on life,
dinosaurs roamed the earth and sea. The working theory for these massive
reptiles extinction involves a meteor, a sky-sized cloud of dust and no
sunlight for an extended period of time.
This resulted in the death of plants and animals alike. luckily for fungi,
they don't photosynthesize, so they thrived in this dark environment.
To paraphrase Matthew 5:5 and quote mycologist Paul Stamets this is when
fungi inherited the earth.
- He is going to inherit the earth.
- Did anyone catch his name?
- While obtaining energy by consuming dead
plants and animals certainly isn't sexy,
it proved useful for mushrooms as well as the organisms that paired with them.
More recently, scientists discovered a handful of mushroom varieties that
seemed to feed off radiation.
So who knows, if someday humanity endures a nuclear winter,
maybe fungus will one up the earth, yet again.
Number 3: Mushrooms eat diesel. Oyster mushrooms may look like something
growing on the side of a fairy tale whitch's shack, but they actually have a
sort of magic of their own.
Paul Stamets, who is basically the LeBron James of mycology, has carried out tests
demonstrating the mushrooms ability to decontaminate soil soaked with diesel.
Over time, Stamets has refined the technique and actually discovered
strains of a mushroom that are tolerant to salt water, allowing him to
create what he calls a "mycoboom," a sort-of floating mushroom garden that can be
deployed over mayor time oil spills.
One can only imagine how the BP Oil Spill might have been different with
this technology.
Scientists, such as Stamets, have gone on record stating that mycology is
greatly underfunded and that fungi such as the oyster mushroom may have large
amounts of tangible benefits to offer us if given the proper attention.
For instance, in 2015
a team from the University of California Riverside discovered that material from
Portobello mushrooms can replace and improve upon the graphite used in
lithium-ion batteries.
Number 2: Cordyceps zombify insects.
If you're having a rough day, try to keep this in mind, at least mushrooms haven't
tried to eat you alive.
"Ophiocordyceps sinensis," or caterpillar fungus, isn't known for patience or
respecting personal space for that matter as it germinates and caterpillars
while they're still alive.
Other corset varieties target ants, wasps, grasshoppers - you name it.
- It's infected brain directs this ant upwards.
- After these unsuspecting prey are attacked, the fungus stays in the host
sometimes for months on end before killing it and rupturing through the
poor things head.
The caterpillar fungus has a long history in Chinese folk medicine and has
been used as an aphrodisiac, cure for cancer and just about everything in
between. A couple pounds of the stuff has been known to fetch the equivalent of 35
thousand dollars in China. That price had better cure everything.
Number 1: Life on earth would disappear without mushrooms.
We've already explored mushrooms role as grim reaper, psychedelic drug and
delicious pizza topping.
But it is also key for the very survival of life on our planet.
Fungi plays the role of nature's recycler, cleaning up the decomposing
dead, and sometimes still alive, plants and animals. Without this service, earth would
very soon be covered in layers of debris and no longer be able to produce new
life. Without carbon, another element being recycled into the soil, plants
would eventually stopped growing.
Scientists point to the forest around Chernobyl where high levels of
radioactive contamination have inhibited fungal activity so much that fallen trees
and leaves hardly decompose at all.
Research also suggests that fungi were the first organisms to leave the ocean
and live on land and played a crucial role in allowing plants to do the same
That circle of life we take for granted today would be nothing without mushrooms.
So, do you have a newfound respect for fungi? Are you an aspiring rockstar
mycologist? For more recyclable top tens and parasitic top fives, be sure to
subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
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