Sorry to have been a bit quiet these last couple of months. Don't worry, nothing is wrong, I was just working on various projects, a few of which were time consuming.
Some years ago, I was a speaker at the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael. One of the other speakers, Paul Stamets, gave a fascinating lecture on fungi. While he covered an amazing terrain in just a hour or so, the most incredible part of the talk was about experiments with radioactive waste. He said that mushrooms could be put on the waste, covered with black cloths for three weeks, and that they would not only decompose the waste but the mushrooms themselves would be edible. I mentioned this to a few colleagues as well as a couple of lawyers, one of whom asked, "Why isn't he on the cover of Time Magazine"?
Obviously, people with solutions to the problems we face should be recognized (and funded and supported in numerous other ways.) As personal issues made it imperative that I study fungi, the magnitude of the issue began to sink in when I heard there were fungi growing in the Mir Space Station. In short, absence of moisture and irradiation did not inhibit fungal growth. This was not promising!
Yesterday, an online article appeared that I believe is must reading for scientists and patients:
