Edible fungi

If frolicking in the woods foraging for wild mushrooms is on your bucket list, by all means, go forth. But when the time comes to determine whether you can eat the mushrooms you picked, please don’t rely on AI.The Fujifilm X100VI is the Most Fun I’ve Had With a Camera in YearsA new in-depth report from Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, warns novice mushroomers against using AI identification tools to determine whether their bounty is edible, pointing out that identifying mushrooms is a “high-risk…

You’ve probably heard the stories: that through an intricate network of underground fungi, trees send nutrients and warning signals back and forth to one another. In Pulitzer Prize-wining novels, New York Times feature articles, PBS documentaries, and TED talks, there have been ample mentions in recent years about the “woodwide web,” or the fungus-mediated connections that supposedly help forests thrive. But that concept may not be all it’s cracked up to be.Every so often in science, a revision is in order. A prevailing…

Just in time for Halloween, scientists in Korea say they’ve found a better way to grow an insect-destroying mushroom in the lab. Their work could make studying these fungi easier, which is important, since they and the chemicals they produce may actually have medicinal uses for humans, creepy as they are.The fungi is known as Cordyceps. Members of this genus, along with a related but distinct genus called Ophiocordyceps, are parasitic, usually feeding on insects and other arthropods. These fungi will invade and often…

Screenshot: HBOFinally, a better look at Pedro Pascal as Joel in HBO’s The Last of Us series. The Mandalorian star shows his face as an apocalypse survivor out for redemption in a world riddled with “clickers,” humans who have mutated into zombies thanks to the worldwide Cordyceps Brain Infection outbreak. Here Pascal plays the lead of the successful PlayStation video game franchise, and (once again) is tasked with a mission to get a kid through a very wild frontier. In an HBO reunion, Game of Thrones standout Bella…