Word: mycelium
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...name a few. But Philip Ross, an artist, an inventor and a seriously obsessed amateur mycologist, isn't interested in the fancy caps we like to eat. What he's after are the fungi's thin, white rootlike fibers. Underground, they form a vast network called a mycelium. Far West Fungi's dirt-free hothouses pack in each mycelium so densely that it forms a mass of bright white spongy matter...
...Mycelium doesn't taste very good, but once it's dried, it has some remarkable properties. It's nontoxic, fireproof and mold- and water-resistant, and it traps more heat than fiberglass insulation. It's also stronger, pound for pound, than concrete. In December, Ross completed what is believed to be the first structure made entirely of mushroom. (Sorry, the homes in the fictional Smurf village don't count.) The 500 bricks he grew at Far West Fungi were so sturdy that he destroyed many a metal file and saw blade in shaping the 'shrooms into an archway...
...Ecocradle is that unlike Styrofoam--which is hard to recycle, let alone biodegrade--this myco-material can easily serve as mulch in your garden. Ecovative's next product, Greensulate, will begin targeting the home-insulation market sometime next year. And according to Bayer's engineering tests, densely packed mycelium is strong enough to be used in place of wooden beams. "It's not so far-out," he says of Ross's art house. So could Bayer see himself growing a mushroom house and living in it? "Well"--he hesitates--"maybe we'd start with a doghouse...
Camembert & Wine. Plantlike, but not quite plants, fungi are rootless and leafless, consist of tiny threads (hyphae) tangled in a mass (mycelium) that can grow as much as half a mile in 24 hours. Lacking chlorophyll, fungi cannot make their own food, batten instead on fabric, fur, fat, paint, plants, plastics, skeletons, cold cream, jet fuel and people. One species can survive only on the left hind leg of a water beetle. Most fungi reproduce by the sexual union of two different spores, sometimes drop hundreds 'of millions of spores in three or four days. Most of them...
...been concerned with one major problem: how to make the mold that produces penicillin yield more heavily. This delicate process has more hazards than an obstacle race. The penicillium mold, found in fertile soil, is cultivated in a sugary solution. It develops a network of very fine branches, *called "mycelium," which secrete penicillin. If the delicate mycelium breaks, production of penicillin stops. Temperature must be kept at 24°C. Worst of all hazards is contamination. The sugary bath in which the mold grows is an ideal medium for bacteria; if any get in, they destroy all penicillin present...
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