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Boomhower
Stranger

Registered: 08/10/12
Posts: 46
Last seen: 10 years, 3 months
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How Mushrooms can Save the World?
#19086307 - 11/04/13 05:06 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Hello everybody.
Ever since I have joined Shroomery I have found myself being extremely intrigued by articles on the topic of using fungi to tackle environmental issues.
The first article that got me interested was an article in the news section of Shroomery. It was about two college students, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre who used Mycelium to create a material similar to Styrofoam, which was completely biodegradable. Information on this can be found here and here is a ted talks where the students talk about it. At this point I was still quite new to this community and my knowledge of fungi and mycology was very limited but I was still quite amazed.
The second time my interest was sparked regarding fungi and its potential impacts on the environment was again found in the news section of Shroomery. Another user posted a video and the video contained a two part news story. The first part being about the Styrofoam-like mycelium and the second part of the report being about a study in which and group of researchers from Yale discovered a fungus in Amazon rainforest that was capable of breaking down polyurethane plastics, and even more significantly it was able to thrive solely on these plastics and in an anaerobic environment, meaning in can survive in environments with no oxygen, such as at the bottom of a landfill. Articles about this fungi can be found here and here. By this point I was much deeper into the mushroom community and had spent large amounts of time learning about mycology.
About a year has gone by since then and I am back in school and have a lot less free time, which means I have been spending a lot less time on Shroomery and studying mycology in general. Now last night I was flipping through Ted Talks on my Netflix and I came across this talk. It is about using mushrooms to decompose human bodies in cemeteries. The lady in the videos name is Jae Rhim Lee and she begins the talk by pointing of all of the harmful chemicals that exist within the human body, some of these include pesticides, preservatives and heavy metals like mercury. And when we rot in the ground these chemicals are spread into the soil and returned back into the environment and continue be harmful to it. So the idea that she had was to use mushrooms to get rid of these harmful toxins, because many species of mushrooms have been found to break these toxins down and transform them into nutrients in which the mushrooms can thrive off. So she invented a suit which look similar to pyjamas and these suits were laced with specific mushroom spores that bodies can be buried in. My mind was completely blown, but little did that the amount of amazment I experienced from this video was small in comparison to the next video I watched.
After that talk one of the related videos I noticed was by Paul Staments. I was amazed I had never seen this video before. It was titled "6 ways mushrooms can change the world" it can be found here. In this video he covers a huge variety of topics. He talks of using fungi to treat virus' such as the flu, about how fungus can be used to break down petroleum based products like diesel fuel, about how using fungi to kill carpenter ants and how he found a way to produce an Econol like fuel using fungi. I was so amazed by all of this and have not been able to get my mind of these topics for days now.
I'm completely hooked on mycology again and have a lot of ideas brewing and would love to learn as much as I can on these topics. The problem that I am having tough is I cannot seem to find a lot of information on these topics. Most articles I have found are extremely brief and not very detailed. If you have read this far I don't want to waste more of you're time, so I will get right to the point.
If anyone has any information on any of the points I have covered in this thread or any information on using fungi to tackle environmental issues, can you please share them in this thread, or point me in the right direction of finding information of this nature. I want to start compiling data and doing research on these topics. All of which I will share back with the Shroomery community.
Thank you !
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Amanita virosa
botanist by day


Registered: 12/04/11
Posts: 2,458
Loc: north kakalacky
Last seen: 7 months, 11 days
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Re: How Mushrooms can Save the World? [Re: Boomhower]
#19086680 - 11/04/13 06:30 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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drake89
Mushroom Magnate



Registered: 06/26/11
Posts: 4,168
Loc: TN
Last seen: 4 years, 11 months
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Quote:
Amanita virosa said: http://archinect.com/news/article/84774322/mushroom-plastics-initiative-ecovative-wins-2013-buckminster-fuller-challenge
These folks just won the buck minster fuller challenge 100000.00$. For their work on mushroom plastics
aw shit that's awesome they got the cash
now someone needs to find something that eats polyethylene
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Rubestoad
Stranger


Registered: 09/13/13
Posts: 231
Loc: your mamas porch. sunrise
Last seen: 8 years, 3 months
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Re: How Mushrooms can Save the World? [Re: drake89]
#19087987 - 11/04/13 11:27 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Awesome
-------------------- Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure


Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 42,214
Loc: Seattle
Last seen: 1 year, 4 days
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Re: How Mushrooms can Save the World? (moved) [Re: Boomhower]
#19088617 - 11/05/13 04:20 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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This thread was moved from Advanced Mycology.
Reason: Off topic in advanced mycology.
If you're interested in bioremediation, search that term. You're not going to find much on mycoremediation because there's not much there but hype. Mushrooms will do little unless accompanied by other techniques as well, mostly involving bacteria. RR
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leschampignons
Biochemistry + Mycology


Registered: 08/30/13
Posts: 1,583
Loc: NY/NJ/ME
Last seen: 28 days, 16 hours
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Re: How Mushrooms can Save the World? [Re: Boomhower]
#19101769 - 11/07/13 05:09 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Thanks for the mushroom themed ted talk. Thought there weren't any of those that I hadn't seen lol. Interesting articles you linked as well.
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The Truth Seeker
Stranger


Registered: 05/23/13
Posts: 68
Loc: Pala
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Very cool! Thanks for the links
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