Paul Stamets: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world

Very cool ....one question for us city dwellers

Will they kill the "cockroach" ? not sure if they have queens but for
people in cities this would be great,

Your Canadian friend,
Sven

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[edit on 11/16/2008 by semperfortis]

That was incredibly interesting. I can't wait to find out what else he has in the works in addition to what he described in the talk.

Thank you for posting this. S&F.

Amazing!!

Could this actually be used to grow new forests in the deserts??

reply to post by MrdDstrbr


Actually yes. In Australia for example it was found that trees whose roots had been inoculated with the Boletus Edulis mycilium (aka Porcini, king bolete and cep... a world class choice edible) grew better and faster than those who weren't.

reply to post by grover


Okay but what about areas that are completely dead, like the Sahara desert.... could you actually start growing new ecosystems there, with this technique?

reply to post by MrdDstrbr


Well first off the Sahara is not dead... there are huge aquifers underneath the desert itself... the trouble is that it has been dropping deeper and deeper into the substrata... also large portions of the top soil is totally eroded.

The key causes of the Sahara as we know it is a change in climate, ocean and air currents and overgrazing in neolithic times.

There are several massive reforestation projects underway... most notably in Libya with some success.

What happens is that the mycellium grows around the roots of the trees and forms a symbiotic relationship with its host... it provides the trees with easy access to various nutrients it needs and takes others from the tree that it needs.

Not all fungi work this way... many are parasitic and others grow on whatever they can find but the ones that do like the Boletes and the truffles are actually now being cultivated by planting forests with trees already inoculated with their respective mycellium.

So the short answer is maybe.

The flip side of that is that you just cannot inoculate just any tree with any fungi mycellium... they are tree specific and if that tree can't grow in that climate, or the mycellium can't, then no, it wouldn't help.


[edit on 26-5-2008 by grover]

After watching this video from the TED website a couple weeks ago I was also blown away by these amazing life-forms. They can be used for so much! And seem to breath life into wherever they are. I have always wondered what humanity was going to do to the increasingly enormous refuse landfill sites all over the world; fungi is the answer!

Interestingly, there is an excellent film about fungi and how it gives rebirth to a dying planet in the future. It is an anime film by none other than Hayao Miyazaki entitled Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. The film takes place in the future where mankind's cities have fallen to an age of over-industrialization, amids the ruins of which fungi have completely taken over, covering the length and breadth of almost the entire globe of fungi jungle, impenetrable by man and highly toxic. The fungi is seen as an enemy by mankind, as it is too poisonous to live amongst. In the end they realize that the fungi have 're-digested' humanities fallen cities and ruined landscapes and created a refreshed and rehabitable globe. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.

I've been thinking about fungi a lot lately, and I'm sure that it would make an excellent tool in terraforming an inhospitable planet. Any thoughts?

I have been wracking my brain trying to remember this book on fungi and mushrooms. It was not a field guide but a general study of the subject and I think this is it...

In the Company of Mushrooms: A Biologist's Tale
Schaechter, Moselio; Schaechter, Elio

I found it on abebooks but I am going to keep looking in just in case. It is a very interesting read if you are into mushrooms and fungi.

Here it is:

Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds: The Remarkable Story of the Fungus Kingdom and Its Impact on Human Affairs
Hudler, George W.

I highly recommend this book... the other one is good too but this is a great read... very informative too.

And here are some of the threads I have posted on the nature of fungi:

www.abovetopsecret.com... fungi roll in processing depleted urainium from the soil

www.abovetopsecret.com... fungi into fuel

www.abovetopsecret.com... fungi metabolism





[edit on 26-5-2008 by grover]

We have found ways to bring back DNA of dinosaurs perhaps and now mushrooms being the world saving entity....yup, im starting to believe mario is gonna pop up!

reply to post by grover

Quote
"all in all they are one of the most interesting life forms on the planet and among the most chemically complex"

I agree...Paul Stamets believes that Fungi are inteligent!

"A group of Japanese researchers recently demonstrated the existence of what they called "cellular intelligence." They put a slime mold into a maze and gave it two food sources. The slime mold split itself and chose the shortest distance possible, navigating throughout the maze as directly as possible to both food sources"

The rat maze for Fungi...fantastic!

Also"Looking at mycelium after mycelium under the scanning electron microscope for years, I began to realize that these mycelia look like externalized neurological networks. Four hundred and sixty-five million years ago, we shared a common ancestry with fungi. Fungi chose the path of digesting nutrients externally. We chose the path of encircling our nutrients, so we have multiple layers of skin"

Now this is better then sci-fi!

"I have been struck by how the computer Internet is very structurally similar to a mycelial mat. There is no point-specific central location on the computer Internet or in a mycelial mass where you can fatally harm the entire organism. Its decentralized organization permits it to react to disturbances in the environment in an exquisite way and to share information along its whole network very effectively. Many forms in nature and the universe seem to share this type of mycelial architecture and certain recurrent shapes, at all levels of size, from spiraling galaxies interspersed amongst the cobweb of dark matter to hurricanes and mushrooms. The mycelial structure may be a core archetypal pattern in our universe. "

It never ends, the more you read about it the more you are drawn into the world of Fungi.

Thank you for your interest....I have joined Bioneers and I want to spread the word and try to make the planet a better place for my children and grandchildren!

www.bioneers.org...

[edit on 26-5-2008 by whiteraven]

Im finding this amazing and will go over all the material as soon as i can.....

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Ive always felt a bit funny about eating mushrooms, not sure why, im a vegetarian and i suppose ive always felt mushrooms were much more than a plant so i tend to avoid them...... is that wise? should we be eating more mushrooms? if so which ones? fascinating thread op,

[edit on 11/16/2008 by semperfortis]

Originally posted by zysin5
I too have found that ancient wisdom find the mushroom to be of great usefullnes. The Chinese are exploring their love for the mushroom.


Your quote "Text RedIm glad to see science finally catching back up with the occultist order of things. Druids, shamans, and occultists alike have known for a long time there is much more to mushrooms than meets the naked eye

Yes brother...this is so true. I listened in amazement when my buddy told me about the Costa Rica shaman who cooked up the brew in a tree trunk when he was dying of cancer...this was 12, almost 13 years ago and he is still cancer free!

reply to post by cosmicstorm


Cosmic...I posted an article at the start of this thread concerning research being done on depression and the magic mushroom. The results hold great promise.

Chinese kings used the mushroom for heart disease, and the ancient greeks used it for treatment of tuberculosis.

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[edit on 11/16/2008 by semperfortis]

Oh man, can anyone get the video of that? I'd PAY to see the video of that!!

reply to post by svenglezz


This is a question that I have not been able to find the answer to yet. I have emailed Paul Stamets org. to see if he would like to visit this forum and answer some Q and A. I have not heard from him as of yet...but he could be in some old growth forest looking for rare mushrooms.








[edit on 26-5-2008 by whiteraven]

Here's a thread I did about three years ago, on the very same subject.

Mycotechnology- Mushroom power activate!

It barely raised a whisper. Good to see that people are starting to catch on. It would be good if others could replicate his experiment, where he breaks down the oil in polluted soil.


Mushroom power activate!

Well, this thread is interesting enough in it's own way - specifically the herb lore part to do with shamanism.

After all, Shamanism did give the world it's first form of medicated healthcare, after a fashion.

I think that this only serves to highlight how dependant on technology we as a culture have become, to the point in which we are astonished by the miracle that is nature whenever we take a serious look at it.

Which is really quite odd, when you think about how Humans are ultimately a part of that nature (not as if that isn't force-fed to us every single day with the "climate change" farce).

Anyway, if there's one thing i'd love to do, it would be to find out what mushrooms them nordic skalds used when making those 'beserker' potions - that is, after all, the very first form of biological warfare.




[edit on 26-5-2008 by Anti-Tyrant]

I knew I liked mushrooms for a reason good post and video