
How Mushrooms Could Hold the Key to Our Long-Term Survival as a Species - DiabloD3
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-mushrooms-could-hold-the-key-to-our-long-term-survival
======
FreakyT
Interesting. The idea that mushrooms could purify pollutants seems reminiscent
of this movie:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087544/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087544/)

~~~
cwkoss
Or this movie:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108255/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108255/)

~~~
FreakyT
But the only way to save Dinohatten is by transporting it to our own
dimension!

------
Gregordinary
While the vice article suggests that mushrooms will make food for themselves
or other organisms from the pollutants they pick up, not all compounds are
broken down in mushrooms. For example it's suggested not to eat mushrooms from
old apple orchards as they may have a higher lead content.

It still may have a practical application to treat soil in an area (as long as
you harvest the mushrooms) but not all of the compounds drawn up by mushrooms
are broken down.

[http://www.fungimag.com/winter-2010-articles/shavit-
morels.p...](http://www.fungimag.com/winter-2010-articles/shavit-morels.pdf)

There have been some other studies where mushroom mounds were created on the
boundaries of farms to help collect phosphates and nitrates in water runoff
with some promising success. Couldn't find the specific study I was thinking
of with a quick search, will update this comment if I find it.

~~~
rosser
The mushrooms aren't necessarily being used to _break down_ the compounds, so
much as to facilitate their _sequestration_. You can then harvest and destroy
the mushrooms and have clean soil.

~~~
smt88
> _destroy the mushrooms_

What are some ways this would be done without spreading the pollutants
elsewhere?

~~~
ekianjo
Pollutants can be re-treated to be less harmful, or incinerated, or simply
dispersed over a large enough surface/volume so that they would not be
considered pollutants anymore at low enough concentrations.

------
heydenberk
I'm sympathetic to the argument (and I enjoy Paul Staments) but this article
is a poorly-written regurgitation of Stamets' ideas, which adds little value
and makes some overly strong unsourced statements along the way.

~~~
smt88
Which statements are too strong?

------
hunglee2
You can also make or rather grow bio-degradeable packaging solutions from
Mycelium. We can look forward to many applications from funghi - got to
support this

------
bunkydoo
It's almost like nature has code behind it we can fork and iterate upon

------
rsuelzer
Love this. If anyone is interested in getting into Mycology I help work on an
open source project mushroomobserver.org

We're always looking for fungi loving techies to help us out:
[https://github.com/MushroomObserver/mushroom-
observer](https://github.com/MushroomObserver/mushroom-observer)

------
anonbanker
This was a kickstarter commercial. Seems CNN didn't purchase Vice's integrity
when they bought everything.

------
rosser
The video in TFA is _so_ worth the 18-and-change minutes it takes to watch.

~~~
e40
It would be nice if you could include a "why" for statements like that.

------
mqsoh
Is it by eating them? I like mushrooms.

------
stolio
Would this article make the front-page if the word mushroom was replaced with
mycelium or fungus which removed the hope of legitimizing psychedelics? I
doubt it, even in the article they extol the virtues of "magical" mushrooms:

> While it’s also being researched for uses in less cosmic concerns like
> breaking addiction and treat​ing cancer, psilocybin’s third-eye-opening
> properties aren’t superficial. Some the​ories argue that modern human
> intelligence itself was borne of consumption of the stuff. Magic mushrooms
> are something about which Stamets is (naturally) an expert...

OTOH, maybe it's good to have the word mushroom in the title since it also
signals to the rest of us that it's probably going to be an article by and for
fans of psilocybin.

~~~
coderzach
I doubt anyone read the title, and then upvoted, because they assumed it was
an article about how psychedelics held the key to humanity's survival.

~~~
stolio
How many pot-heads have you known who would chew your ear off about hemp? It's
innocence by association.

