Great Throughts Treasury

"Agarikon contains antiviral molecules new to science. Researchers for pharmaceutical companies may have missed its potent antiviral properties. Our analyses show that the mycelial cultures of this mushroom are most active but that the fruitbodies, the natural form of the mushroom, are not."

"Although the trends are promising and reishi mushrooms exhibit a number of interesting medicinal properties, modern scientific techniques have yet to affirm its traditional 'panacea polypore' status."

"Anyone can go outside right now and find a piece of wood that has been on the ground and just lift it up. You will see mycelium. Mycelium is a not so invisible landscape that is underfoot all around you at all times."

"Chaga is one of the weirdest mushrooms you may ever see. A fungal parasite found on birch trees, Chaga is a hardened, blackened, crusty formation that looks like a bursting tumor? Chaga is significant in ethnomycology, forest ecology, and increasingly in pharmacognosy. Its long-term human use and cultural eastern European and Russian acceptance should awaken serious researchers to its potential as a reservoir of new medicines, and as a powerful preventive ally for protecting DNA? Chaga mycelium is relatively easy to grow by using methods already practiced elsewhere in the mushroom industry. Its mycelium is initially an off-whitish color, deepening with age."

"Although oyster mushrooms have been studied extensively and support health in a number of ways, it is also extremely important to always cook oyster mushrooms!"

"For many years, I have sought and studied Agarikon, an unusual mushroom native to the old growth conifer forests of North America and Europe."

"Disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, oil spills and radioactive fallout cause massive death of people, pigs, bats and birds. These disasters also impact the immune health of survivors. All harbor viruses."

"Enoki mushrooms, a tasty variety commonly sold in grocery stores, were one of the first mushrooms studied for preventing cancer."

"Even though we could be called an evolutionary success, I like to think that every organism on this planet has a vote. If there were a United Organization of Organisms, otherwise called Uh-Oh, if every organism voted, would we be voted on the planet or off the planet? I think that vote is happening right now. Unless we pay attention to preserving biodiversity, the very organisms that give us life will be destroyed."

"Fungi are the grand recyclers of the planet and the vanguard species in habitat restoration."

"Fungi move quickly. I have lots and lots of examples, especially recently of how important fungal biodiversity is. One example is I have been working with a Bioshield Program of the US Defense Department. I have submitted over 300 samples. They have analyzed over 2 million so far. One of my samples of mushrooms that comes as a species called Agarikon (Fomitopsis officinalis) comes exclusively from the old growth forests of western Oregon, Washington, Northern Califorinia and British Columbia. It is now thought to be extinct in Europe. This mushroom, exclusive to the old growth forests, has within it very strong anti-pox properties, which includes smallpox. The Bioshield Program has affirmed this. There is a vetted DOD press release. If you google ?Stamets? and then ?smallpox?, people can read it. Our research has further continued. I am bound by confidentiality agreements, but we may be navigating to a whole new class of antivirals."

"Fungi were the first organisms on land, around 1.3 billion years ago. Plants came to land about 600 million years later. Carbon is sequestered into the polysaccharide-rich exoskeleton of the fungal cells, called mycelium, and with the abundant calcium-oxalate crystals (two CO2 molecules joined together) that form externally. As these threadlike mycelial cellular networks grow, soil is created in their path. Most organisms became codependent upon fungi after catastrophic events like the asteroid impacts that occurred 250 and 65 million years ago. When debris fields darkened the earth and caused mass extinctions, plants and animals that paired with fungi survived. Thanks to soils enhanced by fungal networks, the earth re-greened in a sudden proliferation of flora. As earth recoils from the ongoing catastrophe inflicted by our species, it?s time for another re-greening."

"From dead plant matter to nematodes to bacteria, never underestimate the cleverness of mushrooms to find new food!"

"Fungi are keystone organisms for building humus in emerging habitats. Enhancing fungi-generated soil is one way we can offset global warming by sequestering carbon into humus. Fungi retain around 50 percent of the carbon they absorb into their cell walls from enzymatic breakdown of plants and animals. Thicker carbon-rich humus layers support more diverse food chains and life cycles, especially in the descendant plants that subsequently absorb CO2 and respire oxygen. Investing in the humus bank earns dividends in the natural currency of carbon credits. And, because fungi liberate and retain moisture while increasing the tenacity of the soil structure, they make soil less prone to erosion. [response to question on how can fungi help with global warming]"

"Growing the mycelium of the Chaga mushroom under laboratory conditions provides an ecologically friendly alternative supply of this unique medicinal mushroom."

"I am a mycelial messenger. If anyone gets anything out of this, it is the role and importance of mycelium in nature. Unfortunately, the problem that we face in our society is - you mentioned mushrooms. People think about Portobellos or Magic Mushrooms. And there is a form of biological racism that has prevented science from using these fungi and the mushroom forming fungi to our advantage. When people understand that the largest organism in the world is a mycelial mat over 2200 acres in size and yet it is one cell wall thick. We have five or six skin cell layers that protect us from infection. How do these mats achieve the largest masses of any organism in the world and be one cell wall thick, surrounded by billions of hungry microbes per gram that want to eat this highly nutritious network of cells?"

"I believe that nature is intelligent. I believe that we are born of nature and if we are intelligent then, by definition, nature must be because nature gave rise to us."

"I have a great concern that if humans don't get their act together - and this petty politics just is a bunch of cacophony that distracts people from the issues that we should be really focused on. Frankly, I don't care about ?American Idol?. Frankly, I don't care about the Republican Party. This is just a bunch of noise as the ship is sinking. We should be focusing 100% on preserving the ecosystems because these ecosystems are our children's destiny."

"I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind. The mycelium stays in constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges."

"I make the argument that we should save the old-growth forests as a matter of national defense."

"I fear and I sense that children in the future are pointing and calling back in time, pointing their fingers at us asking us, ?What the hell were you thinking? What are you doing?? There is a growing legion of mycowarriors I hope emerging around the planet to pick up this cause."

"I may be speaking with one voice. This is the voice of Paul Stamets. And all the listeners may be listening in a sense as one individual. But in fact, we are composites. So it is my microbial community speaking to yours. These fungal networks that exist in nature not only are they a great example of networks and resiliency, but I don't think most people know that they are walking upon these things and they breathe life - the absence of which we will have biologically anemic environments."

"I coined the word ?myco-restoration?, which includes ?myco-remediation?, ?myco-filtration?, ?myco-forestry?, ?myco-pesticides? and the use of fungi to help stabilize ecosystems."

"I have started a Mycorestoration (SM) Initiative to establish educational hubs for permaculture, remediation, reforestation and ethanol production?all using the power of fungi. I have invented and tested several methods and co-products: Mycorestoration (SM) encompasses mycofiltration, mycoremediation and plant-fungal pairings for building soil and strengthening food webs. The Life Box?: I insert seeds and spores within the corrugations of recycled cardboard boxes used for shipping. Add water, and the box springs to life. By pairing seeds with beneficial fungi, plants uptake nutrients more efficiently, resist drought and are better protected from disease. One-percent market share in the US would re-green 15,000 acres per week. This recycling technique can apply to other paper-based and biodegradable packaging. Mycopesticides preserve insect biodiversity by replacing toxic insecticides with natural mycological solutions. My recently awarded US patent covers around 200,000 species of insects. These mycelially based mycopesticides, attractants, phagostimulants and treatments may control insect plagues and the viral epidemics they vector. Fungal Anti-Infectives for disease prevention?I have applied for several antiviral patents for methods and compositions of fungal strains for helping stave off flu viruses, including bird flu, pox and SARS viruses. Nearly 300 of my fungal samples have been tested with hundreds more being tested this year. These fungal extracts supplement existing therapies, increasing our defenses for mitigating viral epidemics and bacterial infections. Myconol? & Mycohol?: This mycotechnology (patent pending) focuses on creating ethanol and enzymes from mycelium-on-cellulose. Fungi offer nearly 200 uniquely different enzymes that can be used synergistically for creating sugars, detoxifying pollutants and enhancing benefits from other feedstocks used for making biofuels. I envision these technologies as solutions for combating global warming and species extinction, and for promoting healthy habitats. Unless we work together to save the old-growth forests, the mushroom genome will become increasingly threatened, and therefore our very existence may be at stake. The loss of these keystone organisms should be an ecological call-to-arms for all concerned about our children's future and the future of this planet. I hope my skills will be part of a larger system for healing the planet."

"I think nature all around us is conscious of our presence. Whether we are conscious of nature?s presence of course, is a totally different matter. I proposed that mycelium is the Earth's natural Internet and I got a lot of flak for this. But I am really happy that Dr. Nick Reid from Edinburgh and another group of scientists from Oxford came out with two papers this year looking at the mathematics of Internet and the structure of the nodes of crossing as mycelium grows. Lo and behold, using the same mathematical formula, they found that through evolution, mycelium has optimized its nodes of crossing and the design of its networks to the same optimum that the computer Internet theory also is seeking."

"I see the mycelium as the Earth's natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks. Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amounts of data regarding the movements of all organisms through the landscape."

"I think the take-home message that listeners would benefit from is to realize that when the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago and coalesced out of stardust, the first organisms first appeared in the ocean. The very first organisms on land were fungi. They marched onto land 1.3 billion years ago and plants followed 600 million years later. Now fungi munch rocks. They produce oxalic acids and other enzymes and acids that actually will take minerals out of rocks and make them crumble."

"I propose to you that the mycelium is conscious. There is a consciousness there and we need to engage these intelligent organisms for our mutual benefit. Now whether you believe they are conscious or not doesn't really matter. See what they can do. The proof is in their activity. We have been able to break down diesel and oil spills from 20,000 ppm of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to less than 200 in eight weeks thus being able to clean up habitats so they will rebound with all sorts of other organisms. Otherwise they are anemic, biologically nearly sterile environments and extremely toxic."

"I think we will see a viral storm in the very near future. These viral storms are a direct result of loss of biodiversity and the efforts of nature to knockdown the virulent organism, which unfortunately means us."

"I was fascinated by the psilocybin mushrooms and did a lot of work with the electron microscope and was a significant contributor to Dr. Gastan Guzmon?s monograph on the genus Psilocybe, which is a world monograph. In that genus are the majority of psilocybin active species. I have named four species in that genus to date that still survive in the scientific literature. Sometimes the named species are thrown out later by other mycologists. I'm happy to say that after 25 years they still stand as being valid species. This led me into cultivation. Then as my horizons broadened, I started to become very interested in growing other types of mushrooms, non-psychoactive ones. My mother was happy about that!"

"If there were a United Organization of Organisms, otherwise called Uh-Oh, if every organism voted, would we be voted on the planet or off the planet? I think that vote is happening right now. Unless we pay attention to preserving biodiversity, the very organisms that give us life will be destroyed."

"I told my mother that I had this great epiphany. I wanted to share it with her because I think it is a bridge between people who think they are on polar opposites but they actually aren't. I actually made this into a bumper sticker. It is ?Evolution Is God's Intelligent Design?. I think that says it all. The mystery of Nature and that of God is far greater than that which our minds, with all their limitations, can even begin to comprehend. If we knowledge that we are ignorant in the face of Nature and God's complexity, then any interpretation that we have of God is inherently flawed, which doesn't mean that you can't be spiritual. It means that, as we struggle to understand the vastness of the universe, whether you believe in one deity or whether you believe in Nature, I think it is all one and the same. Ultimately I think that the chasm between people who believe in Nature versus people who believe in God that will narrow. Indeed Nature and God is one."

"If you do not know where the mushroom products you are consuming are grown, think twice before eating them."

"I was a starving student living at the end of a dead-end road A-frame with no power and no water. One night, around 11 o'clock I felt emboldened to stand up and I walked through the woods at night on an old abandoned logging road. There was no moon. And I suddenly stopped frozen. I leaned down in total darkness and I put my hand on top of this species that has only been collected twice over decades."

"I wrote Al Gore and Richard Branson. They haven't written back. But I wrote a two-page document on reversing global warming and saving biodiversity by investing in humus. Mycelium and mushrooms are composed of complex carbohydrates. They sequester carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. As the mycelium grows, it produces these wonderful acid crystals called oxalic acid, which are two carbon dioxide molecules joined together. So is the mycelium grows not only are these carbon rich compounds like proteins, but the cell walls are exoskeletons that are extremely high in polysaccharides, carbohydrates."

"If you look on the fungal genome as being soldier candidates protecting the U.S. as our host defense, not only for the ecosystem but for our population... we should be saving our old-growth forests as a matter of national defense."

"In the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, a new super kingdom was erected two years ago called Opisthokontum, recognizing that fungi and animals belong to one Superkingdom. So if we understand the evolution of life on this planet and that we have fungal origins, and understanding how to use these fungi as our hereditary partners can greatly have a positive impact in being able to support life systems on this planet."

"In the wild, an enoki mushroom is often squat-looking and its stem is rarely more than twice as long as the cap is wide. When they are grown by farmers and hobbyists, however, their stems elongate, the caps are smaller, and a forest of golden colored needle-like mushrooms shoot up all at once."

"It was actually a housewife in 1942 who sent in a moldy cantaloupe to a military hospital laboratory in response to the US government's plea to Americans to send your moldy fruit to this one location. From her moldy cantaloupe came a strain of Penicillium chrysogenum that produced 200 times more penicillin than the government had in any of the laboratories. Her strain led to saving millions of lives. The Japanese and the Germans did not have penicillin. But the Americans and the British did."

"In the past, mushrooms were maligned as nutritionally poor. Since they are about 80 to 90 percent water when fresh, their net concentrations of nutrients can be underestimated. Like grains, however, mushrooms should be weighed when dry to get their correct nutrient value."

"Known colloquially as 'winter,' 'golden needle,' and 'velvet foot' mushrooms, enoki mushrooms grow across much of the world, inhabiting dead conifer trees and stumps, and generally appearing throughout the late fall and winter months."

"It's because the fungi are in constant biomolecular communication with its ecosystem. They are articulate. They are inherently intelligent. We are born from fungi. 600 million years ago we separated from fungi. Fungi are our ancestors. We respire carbon dioxide. So do fungi. We inhale oxygen. So do fungi. Our best antibiotics against bacteria come from fungi. But we don't have very good anti-fungal antibiotics because they harm us because of our close relationship."

"Life exists throughout the cosmos and is a consequence of matter in the universe."

"Lion's mane mushrooms are not your classic-looking cap-and-stem variety. These globular-shaped mushrooms sport cascading teeth-like spines rather than the more common gills."

"Lion's mane may be our first 'smart' mushroom. It is a safe, edible fungus that appears to confer cognitive benefits on our aging population."

"Maitake mushrooms are known in Japan as 'the dancing mushroom.' According to a Japanese legend, a group of Buddhist nuns and woodcutters met on a mountain trail, where they discovered a fruiting of maitake mushrooms emerging from the forest floor. Rejoicing at their discovery of this delicious mushroom, they danced to celebrate? Maitake can achieve humongous sizes, sometimes up to 50 pounds per specimen! Massive maitake can form annually from dying dendritic tree roots for many years, even decades."

"Most listeners may not know the history of the use of penicillin. It was actually a housewife in 1942 who sent in a moldy cantaloupe to a military hospital laboratory in response to the US government's plea to Americans to send your moldy fruit to this one location. From her moldy cantaloupe came a strain of Penicillium chrysogenum that produced 200 times more penicillin than the government had in any of the laboratories. Her strain led to saving millions of lives. The Japanese and the Germans did not have penicillin. But the Americans and the British did. So that is an example of biodiversity. But this mushroom growing in the old-growth forests doesn't enjoy the widespread habitat distribution that a Penicillium mold does. It is restricted. We need to invest in our ecosystems. Biodiversity is absolutely critical to human survival. Nature, through hundreds of millions of years of experiments has many great successes. How we navigate through many of the issues that we face today by looking back and looking towards nature to see the experiments that have been successful, we can gain a lot of tools that have been tested in the theater of evolution that are extremely helpful to us."

"Mushrooms also have a very keen sense of humor. The psilocybin mushrooms are most often found in the Northwest around law enforcement facilities, courthouses, universities and churches. So if you want to go and find psilocybin mushrooms in the Northwest, go to your local Sheriff's Department. It's a little bit of a problem frankly. But they have a very peculiar sense of humor it seems like the institutions that need them the most are where they tend to migrate to. Folks, I'm being absolutely serious. It's funny. But it's true. So mushrooms have appeared to me in the strangest of ways. There is a Psilocybe species called Psilocybe sylvatica. Only two collections have been made in Washington State in the past 40 years."

"Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozen that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health."

"Mushrooms are like tips of an iceberg. Unfortunately it is the tip of the sinking iceberg as we lose biodiversity. But it is important that children are familiarized as quickly as possible that we live in symbiosis. We are symbiotic communities. Even humans are not just one species. We are these large mosaics of microbes."