Paul Stamets - The Magic of Mushrooms

The study of biotechnologies is very new and interesting to me. I feel like this could be the new wave to ride on our way to rebuilding a successful and sustainable planet earth. Out of all the current biotechnological studies, I found Paul Stamets', "Magic Mushrooms: Planetary Healing with Deep Biology" excerpt to be one of the most interesting. Stemets describes how the use of fungi can be used to treat and heal polluted soil and ecosystems and also help control insect population. The amount of species of fungi is astonishing and their are still several to be discovered. As of now their are species that have medicinal, edible and now biotechnological qualities, who knows what the future brings with this amazing life-form. Stamets gives one example of the power of the mushroom that really blew my mind. A group of bioremediation companies (including Stamets company, Fungi Perfecti) was called to a diesel fuel spill near Bellingham, Washington. Each company was assigned to a mound of soil that had been destroyed by the spill. While the other companies went about using a standard bacterial and enzymatic procedure, Stamets knew a particular mushroom species that had abilities to break down such a toxic substance, the oyster mushroom. So his inoculated the soil pile with the mycelium of the mushroom. After six weeks the companies came back to the site and all except the pile covered in newly formed oyster mushrooms were still contaminated and unable to support life. The pile with the oysters mushrooms had broken down the toxic spill by releasing acids and enzymes, and tests of toxicity in the soil came back negative. Following this, the mushrooms attracted flies, which laid eggs on them. Maggots came in, which drew in birds and other small mammals to this soil pile, all because of this "magic" mushroom! It is necessary that this practice of study becomes more well-known and popular, it is the future of keeping the planet sustainable and clean.