fungi
by baja · updated 1mo ago
fungi
by baja · updated 1mo ago
baja added 1mo ago
Paul Stamets
See pg 8 Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World for several reports by early researchers who contemplated this innovation, especially Chad A. Mirkin’s work at Department of Chemistry Institute for Nanotechnology Northwestern University: “In the May 23 Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Mirkin’s team at Northwestern University describes how it cultured spores of the fungus Aspergillus niger in the presence of 13-nm-wide gold particles that aggregated on the fibrous hyphae. Once there, the gold particles, each of which was linked to multiple short strands of DNA, could bind an additional nanoscale component bearing complementary DNA strands. This provides a means for readily mixing and matching a variety of nanoscale building blocks into ever more sophisticated structures, Mirkin says.”
Fungi are in between animals and plants. Their cell walls are made of chitin—a substance never found in plants—which makes them more like insects.
baja added 1mo ago
Even so, other scientists would like to see more evidence before they are willing to accept them as a form of language. Other types of pulsing behaviour have previously been recorded in fungal networks, such as pulsing nutrient transport – possibly caused by rhythmic growth as fungi forage for food.
baja added 1mo ago
Mathematical analysis of the electrical signals fungi seemingly send to one another has identified patterns that bear a striking structural similarity to human speech.
Previous research has suggested that fungi conduct electrical impulses through long, underground filamentous structures called hyphae – similar to how nerve cells transmit information
baja added 1mo ago
That makes fungi the largest known living organisms in the world.
baja added 1mo ago
baja added 1mo ago
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