Entangled Life

The forest and its inhabitants dispel any illusions that scientists are in charge. Humility quickly sets in

Field biologists rarely have so much control. The world is the flask and they’re inside it

At a molecular level, fungi and humans are similar enough to benefit from many of the same biochemical innovations

Penicillin, a compound that could defend fungi from bacterial infection, turned out to defend humans as well. This is not unusual: Although fungi have long been lumped together with plants, they are actually more closely related to animals

most fungi form networks of many cells known as hyphae (pronounced HY fee): fine tubular structures that branch, fuse, and tangle into the anarchic filigree of mycelium.

Their metabolic ingenuity allows fungi to forge a wide variety of relationships.

In well-developed ecosystems soil would be rapidly sluiced off by rain were it not for the dense mesh of fungal tissue that holds it together

A species isolated from mining waste is one of the most radiation-resistant organisms ever discovered and may help to clean up nuclear waste sites. The blasted nuclear reactor at Chernobyl is home to a large population of such fungi

mushrooms are only the fruiting bodies of fungi, the place where spores are produced

Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways that we think, feel, and behave