Mushrooms are one of nature’s truest miracles.
Closer to us than to the plants, fungi are credited with the birth of life on land as we know it.
There are over 2000 varieties of mushrooms found across the globe, with new varieties being discovered all the time.
Fungi are everywhere. They're on our bodies, in our food and in the ground we walk on. From medicine & nutrition to decomposition of plastics & even oil spills, fungi are finding purpose in a whole lot of crucial activities in the modern world.
Here's a small list of everything about mushrooms that just blew our mind!
1. Fungi are genetically closer to humans than plants
Just like us, fungi need food, water & O2 to survive.
Fungi have a fibrous substance called chitin in their cell walls, the same as animals. Plants do not.
2. Fungi Are The Largest Life Forms on Earth
The largest living organism on the planet is a single honey mushroom (Armillaria ostoyae) in the Malheur National Forest, Oregon, USA. It’s around 3.5 miles (5.6 km ) wide, occupies an area of 965 hectares (2,385 acres), and is at least 2,400 years old. But could be much older.
Fungal mycelium can grow and expand for miles under the ground as they go in search of food.
3. Fungi Allow Trees to Talk to Each Other
In 1997 Prof Suzanne Simard realized that trees were talking to each other using mycorrhizal networks and came up with the term “Wood Wide Web.”
The vast networks of mycelium allow trees to share nutrients and warn each other about droughts, pests and diseases.
As a barter, trees send up to 70% of the energy they produce into the ground.
4. Some Mushrooms Glow in the Dark
Scientists know of around eighty different species of bioluminescent mushrooms that glow in the dark. New varieties are constantly being discovered.
The latest, discovered in Meghalaya, India, is a fragile mushroom that grows on decaying bamboo.
Discovered in a joint research by mycologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Balipara Foundation (Assam), these mushrooms glow so brightly that the locals call them “electric mushrooms” and use them as natural torches.
Launched in 2007, the Balipara Foundation has been relentlessly working in the direction of ecosystem conservation through a community based approach in the Eastern Himalayas.
Bioluminescent mushrooms use light-emitting compounds called luciferins to glow and attract insects.
They use these insects to spread their spores to new locations helping the species survive.
5. Mushrooms Make Colorful Natural Dyes
Mushrooms can be used alone or combined with other ingredients to make beautiful natural dyes. You can produce almost any color imaginable using different combinations of mushrooms and solvents.
Chemical dyes seep into the groundwater during production & washing, thereby polluting it. Hence natural dyes such as those from the mushrooms offer us new opportunities to create products that are more eco-friendly.
6. Mushroom Mycelium makes a perfect Packaging Material
A biotech companies called Ecovative Design is using mushroom mycelium and agricultural byproducts to grow durable, 100 percent compostable packaging materials.
The mushroom packaging they create is like styrofoam, and you can use it as packaging for just about anything. The big difference is that mushroom packaging only takes 45 days to compost, whereas styrofoam takes about 500 years to biodegrade.
More research in this direction may bring out a very innovative natural solution to manage waste post disposal in an eco-friendly way.
7. Mushrooms Have The Fifth Primary Taste
Basic or primary tastes are unique tastes that cannot be created by combining other tastes.
Most people are only familiar with four primary tastes- sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. But some foods have a fifth primary taste called umami, and mushrooms are one of them.
8. Mushrooms Can Turn Plastic Into Food
Scientists discovered the first fungus that could digest polyurethane plastic in 2011, and another in 2017.
Since then, they have discovered more than 50 types of mushrooms that can digest and break down different types of plastics.
Comments