So where was I ...oh yah, the mushroom festival 
I didn't make it to all the lectures but about 1/2 of them.
Paul Stamets is AMAZING !!!! His presentation and research he discusses is nothing short of spectacular.
The guys enthusiasm towards mushrooms was very infectious. I wanted to start working and doing research almost as soon as I walked out of his conference  .
Some of the key elements he talked about is how smart mycelium is. So many other researchers are looking to spores for answers and he has found many of the answers right in the mycelium, instead of the fruiting bodies and spores. He gave many different examples of how smart mycelium is to ensure its survival.
As well as all the medicinal values of mycelia, and new ones being discovered every day. He has many patents going on with all of his research, look forward to some big discoveries coming from Paul Stamets www.fungi.com in the near future.
Pauls books were such a huge inspiration to me in the beginning when I first started growing mushrooms and started this spore business, but hearing him in person was icing on the cake. If any of you ever get the chance to hear him DO IT
He also talked a lot about psilocybes. He is not shy to express his passion for the psilocybe mushrooms.
He didn't talk about cultivation of them, but more so the history and geographical locations as well as many different species of psilocybes.
There were so many different stories of research he talked about, to many to post them all at once.
One I found interesting is the button mushroom industry has been lying to us Many of the agaricus genus mushrooms, such as your common grocier store button mushrooms have hydrazines (spelling) in them. Which is a known cancer causing agent. A rather high concentration of 2%. Its even used in rocket fuel. Another interesting one is the Agaricus Ablazii. Now here is a catch 22. This mushroom has just recently gained a lot of attention for having some alkaloids that are helping to fight off cancer, yet at the same time its high in hydrazines. The agaricus mushroom industry has been pushing this mushroom hard in Japan as a mushroom to help prevent cancer, yet has cancer causing agents in it. And get this, its a 600 million a year industry in Japan ... DOH !!!
Stamets recommend we do not eat button mushrooms and says he will never eat them again. I have to say that really bothers me since I love putting these mushrooms in food when I cook 
So here is another story I found fascinating, and yet sad. So Stamets has been working with this huge non profit orgainization, I think it was called Patell, in developing different strains of mycelia for various things.
He has several patents they are using etc....well many moons ago they started using his research in various projects. One of discoveries this company made was that 2 of the strains Stamets sent them can neutrilize the VX nerve gas. This has huge military potential and Patell is a very large contractor of the government. So they were very interested in knowing more about these 2 strains. They even offered Stamets a $2 million dollar grant to build a new lab and continue further research. Needless to say Stamets was estatic and this was unexpected as he had not explored this avenue. He even found out about it because his name showed up in the newpapers (his name being on the license of these strains Patell has) as being one the discoverers of this new potential to eliminate the problem of these toxins.
Think about it.. all the leaking nerve gas in canisters that has created huge messes in many places around the world, not to mention Sadam is using many nerve gasses in warheads and other weapons of war.
So the Patell corp wanted to know more about these strains from Stamets they were working with. Until this point he had them all labeled Strain A , B , C etc....and only he knew which mushroom mycelia went with each strain label.
Well, Patell found 2 of his strains to have amazing abilities to neutrilize these toxins. And it turned out, one of those strains, was ps. azurescens ....LOL.... the most potent psilocybe mushroom in the world. Stamets slipped that one in on them just to see what came back. Although, it backfired.:( Once he told them it was a psilocybe, soon there after they withdrew their offer for the $2 million grant. Oh well, you win some you lose some. But it just goes to show you there are so many alkaloids hiding in all these mushrooms that yet to have be discovered and used in so may usefull and potential ways to benefit mankind.
Another huge discovery he recenly made, many of the patents just went through last week, is that certain mushroom mycelia's contain alkaloids that destroy insect colonies yet humans can eat them.
He discovered, from his own house being destroyed by termites, after 10 years...LOL...He said every morning their was a pile of sawdust in this one area of his house he had to cleanup from the termites.
He laid out this certain mushroom mycelia, I cant remember which mushroom, that the termites took the colonized rice back into the labyrinth and it would wipe out the entire colony. Yet, the mycelia was very smart and knew when to release the alkaloids to kill the insects. It worked something like this.
The king insect would bring the mycelia to the queen for approval. She accepted it. Thus the worker insects all got busy and brought back piles of the mycelia and placed it throughout the colony. The mycelia would start growing on wood over the next couple of weeks. Once it had been dispensed throughout the colonies, the mycelia would release alkaloids that wiped out the entired colonies of insects, eggs and all. Talk about some smart mycelia. After a lot more research, it turned out it worked on many different kinds of pests, insects. Can you imagine the potential for all of this. All these years of the chemical companies using pesticides harmfull to humans and the answer lies in mycelia !!! It is said Stamets is somewhat in fear of someone knocking him off because of the multi billion dollar chemical companies dont want this information out there. Rumor has it Stamets was offered something like 50 million dollars for the patent by one of these chemical companies and he turned it down because he was afraid his research would be buried and forgotten.
Another interesting fact about this story is he got the idea from this by reading some other peoples research. But these other mycologist were not looking at the mycelium, they were looking at the spores for this answer. Once again, Stamets emphasized the importance of mycelia and how smart it is.
I'm only giving you the bits and pieces of these stories, there is a lot more to them but to much to write.
I'll tell some more of his research he discussed later.
-Peace-
www.thehawkseye.com
Sacred Mushroom SporesEdited by Ryche Hawk on 08/28/01 02:32 PM. Edited by Ryche Hawk on 08/28/01 02:54 PM. Edited by Ryche Hawk on 08/28/01 03:10 PM.
--------------------
-Peace-
High Quality MUSHROOM SPORES and CULTURES for microscopy at www.muShrooms.com
muShrooms.com is the new web site of
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