Not the mine. sent by a friend.

The fungus is a plant or an animal?

What do the mushrooms think about?

In 2000, Professor Toshiuki Nakagaki, a biologist and physicist from Hokkaido University in Japan, took a sample of a yellow mold fungus and placed it at the entrance to a labyrinth that is used to test the intelligence and memory of mice. At the other end of the labyrinth he placed a cubic of sugar.

Physarum polycephalum seemed to smell sugar and began sending his seeds to look for it. The spiders of the mushroom divided at each crossroads of the labyrinth, and those of them that fell into a deadlock turned and began to look in other directions. For several hours, mushroom spiders filled the labyrinth passages, and by the end of the day one of them found its way to sugar.

Then Toshiuki and a group of his researchers took a piece of the spider fungus involved in the first experiment and placed it at the entrance of a copy of the same labyrinth, also with a cube of sugar at the other end.

What happened struck everyone. At the first moment, the spider branched into two: one process paved its way to sugar, without a single overturn, the other - scratched on the labyrinth wall and crossed it directly, on the ceiling, straight to the goal. The fungal web not only remembered the road, but also changed the rules of the game.

“I have dared to resist the tendency to treat these creatures as plants. When you study mushrooms for several years, you start to pay attention to two things. First, mushrooms are closer to the animal world than it seems. Secondly, their actions sometimes appear to be the result of a conscious decision. I thought that the mushrooms should be given the opportunity to try to solve the puzzles...” – Toshiuki Nakagaki.

Further research has found that mushrooms can plan transport routes no worse and much faster than professional engineers.

Toshiuki took a map of Japan and placed pieces of food in places corresponding to the major cities of the country. He put the mushrooms “on Tokyo.” After 23 hours, they built a linear network of networks to all the pieces of food. The result was an almost accurate copy of the rail network around Tokyo.

"It is not so difficult to connect several dozen points, but to connect them effectively and most economically - it is not easy. I believe that our research will not only help understand how to improve infrastructure, but also how to build more efficient information networks.” by Toshiyuki Nakagaki.

The mystery of another creature.

According to modest estimates, there are about 160,000 people on Earth. There are many strains of mushrooms, most of which have impressive abilities.

For example, in Chernobyl, a fungus was found that feeds on radioactive products and, at the same time, purifies the air around it.

This fungus was found on the wall of a destroyed nuclear plant, which for many years after the disaster continued to produce radiation that destroys everything living within a radius of several kilometers.

While exploring the Amazon forests, two biologists from Yale University have discovered a fungus called Pestalotiopsis microspora capable of decomposing plastic. This ability was discovered when the fungus ate the cup of Petri in which it was grown.

So far, neither our science nor our technology is capable of this. Plastic pollution is one of the biggest technological problems. Today we have great hopes for this fungus.” – Professor Scott A. Stroble

Geneticists from the American Institute of Bioenergy managed to that the strain of mushrooms more quickly digest natural sugar - xylose. The potential significance of this discovery lies in creating a new, cheap and fast way to produce clean biofuel.

It would seem, how does a “primitive” organism, without a brain and limited in movement, do wonders beyond science?

To try to understand the world of mushrooms, you need to explain something first.

Shiitake, portabello and champignon are not just names of edible mushrooms. Each of them is a living organism representing a network of millions of the finest webs underground. Looking from the ground mushrooms are just the “fingerpoints” of these networks, the “tools” with which the body spreads its seeds. Each of these “fingers” contains thousands of disputes. They are spread by the wind and animals.

When the spores fall into the ground, they create new networks and grow new mushrooms.

This creature breathes oxygen.

It is so unusual from a biological point of view that it is attributed to its own kingdom, separating it from both animals and plants.

But what do we really know about this form of life?

We do not know what causes the underground system of spiders at a certain point to release mushrooms to the surface of the earth; why one mushroom grows toward one tree and the other toward the other; and why some of them produce deadly poisons while others are tasty, beneficial and odorable.

“In some cases, we can’t even predict the timetable of their development. The mushrooms can appear in three years, and they can appear in 30 years after their spore has found a suitable tree.

In other words, we don’t know even the most basic things about mushrooms.” Michael Pollan, a researcher

The Queen of the Dead.

“We find it difficult to understand mushrooms because of their anatomical structure. When you take a tomato in your hand, you hold the whole tomato as it is. But you can’t break the mushroom and explore its structure. The fungus is just the fruit of a large and complex organism. The grid is too thin to be cleaned off the ground without damaging it.” Sguela Motspi, a microbiologist

Another problem is that most forest fungi cannot be domesticated and are very difficult to grow, both for research and industrial purposes.

"They only choose a certain bed, they decide when to germinate. Often their choice falls on old trees that cannot be moved elsewhere. And even if we plant hundreds of suitable trees in the forest and scatter billions of disputes on the ground, there will be no guarantee of getting mushrooms at a reasonable time,” said Michael Pollan, the researcher.

The systems of nutrition, growth, reproduction and energy production in mushrooms are completely different than in animals.

They do not have chlorophyll and therefore, unlike plants, they do not use direct sun energy.

Champignons, shiitake, and portabello, for example, grow on a floor of worn plants.

Like animals, fungi digest food, but, unlike them, digest food outside their bodies: fungi release enzymes that break down organic matter into its components and then absorb these molecules.

If the soil is the stomach of the globe, the mushrooms are its digestive juices.

Without their ability to decompose and process organic substances, the earth would have long been suffocated.

Dead matter would accumulate indefinitely, the carbon cycle would be interrupted, and all living things would be left without food.

“In our research, we focus on life and growth, but in nature, death and disintegration are equally important. The mushrooms are the undisputed rulers of the kingdom of death. There are so many of them in the cemeteries.

But the biggest secret is the enormous energy of mushrooms.

There are fungi that can break the asphalt, shine in the dark, process a bunch of petrochemical waste overnight and turn it into a edible and nutritious product.

The fungus Coprinopsis atramentaria is able to grow a fruit body in a few hours and then, in a day, to turn into a shell of black ink.

Hallucinogenic fungi change the consciousness of people.

There are poisonous fungi that can kill an elephant. And the paradox is that they all contain a tiny amount of calories that researchers typically use to measure energy.

Our way of measuring energy does not seem to fit here.

Calories characterize the solar energy stored in plants. But the mushrooms are poorly associated with the sun.

They grown at night and wandered during the day. Their energy is something entirely different.” — Michael Pollan, researcher.

Internet underground.

The fungus is a complex infrastructure on which all the plants in the world are located. In ten cubic centimeters of soil can be found eight kilometers of its networks. The foot of a man covers about half a million kilometers of tightly located networks. Paul Stemetz, a mycologist

What’s going on in those networks?

In the early 1990s, the idea first emerged that the network of these networks not only transmitted food and chemicals, but was also a smart and self-learning network of communication. Considering even small sections of this network, it is easy to know the familiar structure.

The graphic image of the internet looks exactly the same. The network is branched, and if one of the branches fails, it is quickly replaced by circumference paths. Its nodes, located in strategic areas, are better supplied with power at the expense of less active places, and are enlarged. These networks have sensitivity. And each web can transmit information to the entire network.

There is no central server. Each web is independent, and the information it collects can be transmitted to the network in all directions.

"Therefore, the basic model of the Internet has existed at all times, but it was hidden in the earth." Paul Stemetz, a mycologist

The network itself may seem to grow to infinity. For example, in the state of Michigan, a fungus was found that grew underground to an area of nine square kilometers. Its age is estimated to be about 2000 years old.

When does the network decide to grow mushrooms?

Sometimes the cause is a danger to the future of the network. If the forest feeding the network burns, the fungus stops receiving sugars from the tree roots. Then she grows mushrooms at the most distant ends so that they spread fungal spores, “release” her genes and give them the opportunity to find a new place. So came the expression “flies after the rain.” The rain washes off organic rot from the earth and, in essence, deprives the network of its source of power - then the network and sends "rescue units" with disputes in search of a new shelter.

A nightmare for everybody.

“Finding a new home” is another thing that distinguishes mushrooms from the animal and plant kingdom.

There are fungi that spread their spores like fruits spread their seeds.

Others produce pheromones that cause living beings to obsessively thirst for them. Collectors of white truffles are used to search for pigs, as the smell of these mushrooms is similar to the smell of alpha-kaban.

However, there are more complex and cruel ways of spreading mushrooms.

Observation of the West African ants of the species Megaloponera foetens has recorded that they climb high trees every year, and with such force swallow their jaw in the trunk that after that they can not free themselves and die.

Previously, there were no cases of mass suicide of ants.

It turned out that the insects acted against their will, and someone else sent them to death.

The reason - the smallest spores of mushrooms