Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

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Különben meg sietve leszögezem: a gombák univerzuma legkevésbé sem pici és koszlott, hanem objektíve baromi érdekes és kvázi határtalan. Mert ugye a gomba nem csak gyanús szürke folt, ami a nedves vakolaton virágzik, vagy piros kalpag fehér lábon, ami eső után nő ki az erdőben – nem, ez utóbbi például csak a termőtest. (Úgy képzeljük el, mintha egy alma volna, amihez tartozik egy jobbára láthatatlan almafa is, ami elrejtőzött a föld alatt.) No most ezek a gombák bizony tudnak fura dolgokat. A fenn említett piros kalpag például hajlamos kinyírni azt, aki megeszi, mértékkel fogyasztva pedig téren és időn átívelő hallucinatív utazásokkal lepi meg a szibériai sámánokat. Egyes fajok sört készítenek nekünk, mások megeszik előlünk a sajtot, megint mások meg camembert-rel kedveskednek a sajtkészítőknek. Olyan is akad, ami megunta, hogy nincsen lába, ezért lenyúlja egy hangyáét**. Ami amúgy tényleg creepy. De ne belőle induljunk ki, hanem higgyük el: a gombák zöme a barátunk. Megkerülhetetlen szerepük van a földi élet kialakulásában és fenntartásában – hogy mást ne mondjak, nélkülük a tengeri algák képtelenek lettek volna meghódítani a szárazulatokat. Merlin is the author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He is a research associate of the Vrije University, Amsterdam, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation and the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks. About biocomputing, a conversation between Andrew Adamatzky, Professor in Unconventional Computing in the Department of Computer Science and Director of the Unconventional Computing Laboratory, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, and Merlin Sheldrake, the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-LIV... You will learn here how to grow oyster mushrooms out of baby poop (removing the plastic from the diapers first, of course), how mushrooms can 'consume' Saddam Hussein's VX gas, degrade pesticides and remove infectious diseases like E. coli. In some situations, lichens reproduce without breaking up their relationship—fragments of a lichen containing all the symbiotic partners can travel as one to a new location and grow into a new lichen. In other situations, lichen fungi produce spores that travel alone. Upon arrival in a new place, the fungus must meet a compatible photobiont

a b c Cooke, Rachel (23 August 2020). "The future is fungal: why the 'megascience' of mycology is on the rise". The Observer. Archived from the original on 31 August 2020 . Retrieved 31 August 2020. These are all simplistic descriptions – the book is wide ranging, often more interested in posing questions or giving alternative views than giving simple answers or go for straight explanation.In my natural sciences studies over the years, though I was aware of fungi roles I hadn't focused much on them. I found this book an important other dimension, adding considerable complexity to physical being. It is not only informative, but also interesting — at least I would think so for those that strive to broaden their perspective.

Mr. Sheldrake has so much more information and so many more facts in this book. It's impossible for me to do justice in a review. And to be brutally honest, I think he wasn't being quite open with the reader in this book. There was very little discussion, for example, of how his father, Rupert Sheldrake, may have played a role in gaining Merlin access to his education and subsequent ... oh, I don't know ... freedom to wander around talking to people about how mushrooms can change the world? For example, Merlin mentions at one point how he's known Paul Stamets since he was a teenager. Well, why is that, exactly? Because Stamets, I strongly suspect, is likely friends with his parents, or a friend of his parents' friends. Are we able to release ourselves from these metaphors, think out side the skull, and learn to talk about wood wide webs without leaning on one of our well-worn human totems? Are we able to let shared mycorrhizal networks be questions, rather than answers known in advance?” Sheldrake opened my eyes to a world where mushrooms could influence human and animal behaviour alike, just from their scent, like our entire truffle industry. When mature, they release an aroma/chemical so intoxicating that mammals cannot refuse, recruiting us to spread their spores across otherwise impossible distances. There are fungi that eat radiation, that live kilometres underground or in an immense network connecting the roots of trees in a forest, directly influencing their survival and allowing chemicals and nutrients to flow from one tree to another. Some implant themselves in the brains of ants, forcing their physical body to climb up a tree, clamp their jaws around a branch at a height that is optimal for humidity and light, then sprout out of the ant to drop spores on its brothers below. And of course, there are mushrooms that have been used for thousands of years for medicine and recreation.And, in the Native American Language of Potawotomi, the word puhpowee translates as "the force which causes mushrooms to push up from the earth overnight" or, really, "any other shaft rising mysteriously in the night."

I learned so much from this book that I didn't even know, like how cordyceps mushrooms (zombie fungi) take over carpenter ants, march them to their place of death mafia-style, only to consume the ant and sprout a mushroom out of its head when they're finished like they're some sort of hideous nightmare Pikmin creature! Or that mushrooms are actually more closely related to animals than plants. Mushrooms even have sort of a "hive mind" dynamic, because if you measure the electrical output of mushrooms while exposing one of them to a flame or chemical stimulus, several other mushrooms in the network will give a jolt of electricity. The author also quotes a scientist who refers to lichen as "a sensational romance...[an] unnatural union between a captive Algal damsel and a tyrant Fungal master." I have a life-long love for and fascination with mushrooms. Partially because they are delicious, but I also remember finding them almost magical when I was a kid: they could appear overnight, had the strangest shapes, colors and textures. In my mind, they were almost like alien plants. Later, I learned a little bit about their complex interconnectedness, their adaptability and strange reproduction method – and that only made them more fascinating! The tips circulate “information”, and, in response, the mycelium makes advantageous changes to its behaviour. This is more than mere chemical reaction. Here is a responsive entity with interests that its actions can serve or harm. Sheldrake tries out the idea of swarm-intelligence, but a swarm consists of separate individuals, whereas the network of fused or entangled hyphae functions as a physical whole – or much more like a physical whole. Studying fungi makes these lines harder to draw. It's a long, unpleasant story, but the takeaway is that the fungus gets the carpenter ant to climb to a height where the fungus can then essentially take over its body. The author suggests that this mind-control is what's happening when humans take psilocybin (magic mushrooms or LSD).One partner plays a paternal role, providing genetic material only. The other plays a maternal role, providing genetic material and growing the flesh that matures into truffles and spores. Truffles differ from humans in that either + or - mating types can be maternal or paternal A gombamánia néha elég extrém viselkedési vadhajtásokat is szülhet. Néha például az volt a benyomásom, hogy mikológus csak az lehet, aki élete (minimum) egy pontján alávetette magát egy igazi varacskos LSD-tripnek. All of these characters tell their story in personal terms rather than scientific detail. Children who read this book might see the forest floor in new ways, engaging with the natural world as if it were intelligent, sentient, and friendly. The second edition draws on an additional three years of surveying done over a wider area, adding 23 new species to the 177 already described in the first edition

Admittedly, a lot of these criticisms are just my own personal prejudices, and other readers may not be bothered by them. Entangled Life was written well enough, even if it wandered, and if you're a reader interested in the more philosophical side of fungi, you will likely LOVE this. But I really just wanted the biology with a few side stories thrown in, so this wasn't my cup of tea. While this book is certainly a wonderfully accessible work on the science of fungi, Sheldrake goes an extra step to also be thought-provoking. He wants the readers to question certain things, like the definition of intelligence, see if they can shift their perspective on the world and its structure – all that by looking at how fungi grow, feed, mate and communicate. Coda: Sheldrake’s Gravitational Uncertainty 'Principle': the legendary apple tree in Cambridge, whence a falling apple may (or may not) have inspired Newton in 1726. There is a clone of the original tree in the Cambridge Botanical Gardens, at least 2 more in Cambridge, another at MIT in the US, and more elsewhere. Sheldrake riffs on this botanical theater: the apple tree’s (alleged) involvement in one of the Most Significant Scientific Advances in the history of Western thought was “being affirmed and denied at the same time.” Whoa.

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The science in the book is soft, entering into the narrative both through fun language and interesting illustrations. In many ways, the science is slipped into the story like crushed-up medicine in a tasty treat. There is hope sourced in mycelial bodies; this book gives just a few tastes of all the ways fungi can help save the world. It is a long and detailed book which may be suited to slightly older children than the recommended age group. So, it’s time to start teaching your kids about the fungi kingdom. It’s certainly something that doesn’t always get enough attention. Not only is it a full kingdom of life, but it’s also one that gets a relatively bad name. We tend to think of fungi in limited terms, mostly imagining them as mushrooms, and poisonous ones at that. Fungi is an expansive and interesting kingdom, however. Radical mycology – which looks at those who advocate for a crucial role for fungi in solving world issues