Written by Warsaw Film Festival
Eclectic Perambulations in the Noosphere
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Huitlacoche (pronounced weet-la-KOH-chay) is a fungus, called corn smut in the US.
"Before, it was seen as a food of the poor. Now it's the food of the rich," said Raul Nieto Angel, the dean of the crop sciences department at the university, which extensively tests and researches huitlacoche.
Glow-in-the-dark Neonothopanus gardneri rediscovered after 170 years.
"In 1840, English botanist George Gardner was traveling in Brazil. One night, he noticed some boys playing with a strange, glowing object. To his shock, he had encountered a bioluminescent mushroom. It's only taken 170 years to find some more. After Gardner sent a sample of the fungus to Kew Herbarium in England, it pretty much disappeared completely, and it's now thanks to biologists at San Francisco State that we've finally found some more."
by Phil Lachman
The photo above shows a lovely group of mushrooms nestled against the trunk of a eucalyptus tree. The association between the fungi and the tree however is no accident.