Throughout its existence, mankind has come into contact with the world of mushrooms, where other laws, unknown to us, reign. Scientists have repeatedly put forward the theory that mushrooms are not flora, but fauna. And some argue that the mushroom community is a real civilization with its own collective intelligence, governing the whole world.
Residents of villages close to forests have long noticed strange things associated with mushrooms. Round patches formed in the meadows, on which the ground was dry and black. There was not even a hint of vegetation, but these areas were bordered by a chain of mushrooms.
They are popularly called "witch circles". The ancient Germans believed that such circles remain after the witches' Sabbath. Fearing dark forces, people tried to bypass such places. However, scientists provide a rational explanation for this phenomenon. Within the circle, the mycelium is so dense that it draws out all the juices from the soil, leaving no chance for the plants.
In 2000, Professor Toshiyuki Nakagaki, a biophysicist from the island of Hokkaido, conducted an entertaining experiment, proving that the mushroom is conscious. He placed a sample of yellow mold at the entrance to the labyrinth (laboratory rats are usually put in such rats to test their intelligence).
On the other side of the maze, he placed a sugar cube. The mushroom did not waste time and began to send spider-webs along all the paths of the labyrinth in order to find a delicacy. As a result, one of the processes managed to get to the sugar.
Then the professor complicated the task. He took a small shoot of the mushroom that had been in the first experiment and placed it in another labyrinth, also placing sugar at the end. The mushroom behaved surprisingly - it split into two parts: one went to the sugar through winding passages, and the second crawled directly, climbing the walls and descending, choosing a shorter path.
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After that, the experiment was carried out several more times, all the while making sure that the mushroom "remembers" the old way and at the same time looks for a new, shorter way to sugar. “Mushrooms are much closer to fauna than to flora,” said Professor Nakagaki in one of his interviews. "We still have a lot to learn about them."
Experiments continued to be carried out, testing the ability of mushrooms to build a complex web of webs in search of food. It turned out that mushrooms can plan transport routes just as well and much faster than professional engineers.
Nakagaki took a map of Japan and placed food scraps at locations corresponding to the country's major cities. He put the mushroom "in Tokyo". During the day, the mushroom created a network of branches to reach the food. The result is an almost exact replica of the rail network around Tokyo.
It is not so difficult to connect several dozen points, but connecting them efficiently and most economically is not at all easy. Nakagaki believes that his research will not only help to understand how to improve infrastructure, but also how to build more efficient information networks.
Among the 160,000 various populations of mushrooms that exist on our planet, there are also absolutely incredible species that are able to fight … radiation. They were found on the wall of one of the reactors of the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Mushrooms feed on radiation and additionally purify the air around them.
In the jungle of the Amazon, biologists have found an amazing species of fungi that can decompose plastic. This was discovered after the mushrooms were "eaten" by the plastic cup in which they were grown. There was nothing left of the cup. This incident pushed biologists to the idea of using fungi in the decomposition of plastic waste, because until now, no way has been invented that could effectively destroy them.
Experiments in the field of oncology give even more incredible results. Scientists believe that with the help of mushrooms it will be possible to fight cancer. They destroy cancer cells without affecting the rest. How this happens is a mystery that scientists are going to solve in the near future.
It would seem how a "primitive" organism, without a brain and limited in movement, works wonders beyond the control of science? To try to understand the world of the mushroom, you must first explain something. Shiitake, portobello and champignon are not only the names of edible mushrooms. Each of them is a living organism, representing a network of millions of thinnest cobwebs under the ground.
The mushrooms peering out of the ground are just the "fingertips" of these cobwebs, the "tools" with which the body spreads its seeds. Each such “finger” contains thousands of spores. They are carried by the wind and animals. When spores enter the ground, they create new webs and germinate with new fungi.
Little is known about what prompts the underground system of cobwebs at a certain moment to release mushrooms to the surface of the earth, why one mushroom grows towards one tree, and another towards another, and why some of them produce deadly poisons, while others are tasty, healthy and fragrant.
In some cases, it is even impossible to predict the timing of their development. Mushrooms may appear three years later, or 30 years after their spore has found a suitable tree.
Interestingly, most forest mushrooms cannot be domesticated and are very difficult to grow, both for research and for industrial purposes. They choose only a certain litter, they themselves decide when to germinate.
Often their choice falls on old trees that cannot be transferred to another place. And even if hundreds of suitable trees are planted in the forest and billions of spores are sprayed on the ground, there is no guarantee of getting mushrooms in a reasonable time.
The systems of nutrition, growth, reproduction and energy production in fungi are completely different from those in animals. They do not have chlorophyll and therefore, unlike plants, they do not directly use the energy of the sun. Champignons, shiitake and portobello, for example, grow on a litter of wilted plants.
Like animals, mushrooms digest food, but unlike them, they digest food outside of their bodies. They secrete enzymes that break down organic matter into its constituents, and then absorb these molecules.
If soil is the stomach of the globe, then mushrooms are its digestive juices. Without their ability to decompose and process organic matter, the earth would have suffocated long ago. Dead matter would accumulate endlessly, the carbon cycle would be interrupted, and all living things would be left without food.
Nakagaki's research focuses on life and growth, but in nature, death and decay are equally important. Mushrooms are the undisputed rulers of the kingdom of death. Therefore, by the way, there are so many of them in cemeteries. But the biggest secret is the enormous energy of the mushrooms.
There are mushrooms that can crack asphalt, glow in the dark, process a whole bunch of petrochemical waste overnight and turn it into an edible and nutritious product. The Coprinopsis atramentaria fungus can grow a fruiting body in a few hours and then, in one day, turn into a pool of black ink.
In the early 1990s, for the first time, the idea arose that the mycelium spider web not only transmits food and chemicals, but is also an intelligent and self-learning communication network. The network branches, and if one of the branches fails, then it is quickly replaced by workarounds.
Its nodes, located in strategic areas, are better supplied with power due to less active places, and are enlarged. These webs have a sensitivity, and each webs can convey information to the entire web.
At the same time, there is no "central server". Each spider web is independent, and the information it collects can be transmitted to the network in all directions. The network itself seems to be able to grow indefinitely. For example, in the state of Michigan, a mycelium was found, which has grown underground over an area of nine square kilometers. It is estimated to be about 2,000 years old.
From a purely biological point of view, each cobweb individually receives chemical signals about where to go and what to avoid. The sum of these signals creates a kind of decision-making system. In other words, the intelligence of the mushroom is in its network.
If the forest feeding the network burns out, then the mycelium stops receiving sugar from the tree roots. Then she sprouts mushrooms at the most distant ends, so that they spread fungal spores, "free" her genes and give them the opportunity to find a new place.
This is how the expression "mushrooms after rain" appeared. The rain washes away organic rot from the ground, which in essence deprives the network of its power source, and then the network sends "rescue squads" with disputes in search of a new refuge.
"Finding a new home" is another thing that distinguishes mushrooms from the animal and plant kingdom. Some mushrooms have such sophisticated methods of conquering new territories that it's time to write a script for a horror movie.
On trees in Cameroon, you can see hundreds of mushrooms growing from the bodies of Megaloponera foetens. Fungal spores enter the ant's mouth and intoxicate it. The ant climbs a tree and sinks its teeth into its trunk with such force that then it cannot free itself. After two weeks, the spore begins to germinate, as a result, the fungus comes out into the light, tearing apart the ant's body.
The Thai "zombie mushroom" Ophiocordyceps unilateralis encourages the ants that feed on it to climb the leaves of certain plants. The distance that the infected ants travel for this is much greater than the distances in their normal life, and therefore, having reached the leaves, the insects die of fatigue and hunger, and after two weeks mushrooms sprout from their bodies.
Professor David Hughes has discovered fungi that control the brains of spiders, lice and flies. This is not coincidence, natural selection, or byproducts of another process. These insects are sent against their will to where they shouldn't be, but mushrooms like. When the researchers transferred the infected ants to other leaves, the mushrooms simply did not germinate.
Mycologist Paul Stemets considers mycelium to be the most complex natural infrastructure. It resembles an image of Internet servers. So far, scientists have not found the "control center" of such a network, but everything can be. After all, it is possible that this is only a basic model, and its development has just begun.
Used materials from the article of Marina Komarova from the site oracle-today.ru