It would seem that when one’s eyes are peeled for any signs of valuable fungi, the probability of walking off of a cliff seem to go up considerably. At least that’s the story out of Italy these days, as the so called “massacre” of mushroom hunters has resulted in 18 deaths, ten of which were [...]

According to Are mushrooms the solution to the beach closings on Madison’s lakes? a coalition of local non-profit orgnizations aims to employ fungi as part of a plan to clean up the beaches of Lake Wingra in Wisconsin. Christina Cappy, a member of the UW-Madison chapter of Engineers Without Borders and one of the coordinators [...]

I couldn’t help but notice What If Terrorists Use the ‘Zombie Ant’ Brain Fungus to Make Zombie Suicide Bombers? at Gawker.com: Remember that brain fungus that forces “zombie ants” to leave their colonies and march around feeding a fungal organism in their brains until one day it pops out and kills them? What if the [...]

I don’t  know about anyone else, but I have been enjoying the Bravo show “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.” It’s one of those reality competition shows (like “Top Chef” or “Project Runway”) but with artists competing each week on a different challenge. I like it because of the creativity and expression, and because [...]

I seem to recall reading some years ago about research indicating that eating raw button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) caused increased incidence of stomach cancer in laboratory animals. Since then, I have not eaten a raw one. I probably ought to look into updating my information on that. On the other hand, evidence that button mushrooms [...]