Did you know that magnificent kingdom of Fungi was considered a subspecies to plants until 1969? That they populated rocks a billion years ago and made terrestrial life possible? Yeah, none of us did either. In this episode, Drea will educate you, in her own, unique way, about the fungus among us.
Did you know that magnificent kingdom of Fungi was considered a subspecies to plants until 1969? That they populated rocks a billion years ago and made terrestrial life possible? Yeah, none of us did either. In this episode, Drea will educate you, in her own, unique way, about the fungus among us.
I feel like I look fuzzy, but oh,
Drea:Fuzzy. You look fuzzy.
Lisa:I look fuzzy? I feel
Carey:I think it's just your background.
Meags:your background
Lisa:Well, my background is fuzzy. That's on purpose. You guys don't
Kathy:kind of look fuzzy.
Lisa:my office is a mess and y'all don't need to see it. So
Drea:You have like a, you have like a rosy glow. Is that
Lisa:have a glow.
Drea:yeah.
Lisa:that's the wine.
Kathy:the Barbara Walters filter.
Lisa:What? Sorry.
Kathy:You have the Barbara Walters filter on.
Lisa:Oh, the Robert Walters filter.
Meags:is basically just like a little Vaseline on the lens.
Kathy:It's the soft, it's the soft lighting.
Lisa:what's funny is I'm trying, I was trying to figure out how to like check that and I'm not even sure where to find it. I feel sense, like so much like a boomer, even though I'm not a boomer.
Drea:not, you're not.
Lisa:I'm a gen Xer and proud of it. Thank you.
Meags:Hmm.
Drea:And did you know that I, that our, you know, our kids are Janet and Gen Z and they can be, they can be called Zoomers. But which I had
Carey:When do millennials stop? What? Like how old's a millennial?
Drea:I, I think it's
Lisa:early 2000 at some point. I'm not
Drea:no, no, no. It's, I was just reading this. So it was somewhere like in the late nineties is when they
Lisa:Oh, okay.
Carey:Oh, well that makes sense cuz Gen z i, doesn't that stop in like the eighties, late eighties? I,
Drea:That does Gen X. That's us. We're Gen X sweetheart.
Lisa:Gen X.
Carey:right, that's what I'm saying. Doesn't Gen Z doesn't Gen X start like in the eighties? Stop in the eighties?
Drea:Yes. Yeah.
Lisa:They start like 19, like officially, 1980, but like my little brother is 81 and all of his older siblings are. Gen Xer. So I think he's an honorary Gen Xer. That's my theory.
Carey:Yeah, I had heard 60 to 80, but I don't know if that's, if that's
Lisa:No,
Drea:Well, that's us. That's us.
Lisa:baby boomers, go to like 65, 67. It kind of depends where, what you read
Drea:Okay. So Gen X I think is from like 68 to. 88 or something like that. And then we've got, and then 80, well
Carey:Liz was a
Drea:you know what we're topic here.
Meags:millennials are.
Carey:boomer.
Lisa:I know is in all the generation battles, gen X is left out because just too cool and laid back. That's what it is.
Drea:Well, no, but that's kind of what I, I read this article that said that our kids like us, like that they don't, you know, that they like us and they like talking to us and hanging out with us unlike almost every generation before with their parents. So I was like, that's pretty
Lisa:mean,
Carey:That's pretty good.
Lisa:I'm hoping I get that to that place. Right now, my oldest is really kinda pushing back from our
Carey:He's what? 15?
Lisa:that we used to have, but he's 16, so
Carey:Oh yeah. Well that's what he is supposed to do.
Lisa:exactly. I don't
Carey:an asshole and he's gonna be an asshole for a couple of years.
Lisa:It's when he's rude to me that
Carey:It's just boys.
Lisa:Right. It's like I just have to make sure he understands when he is in the wrong, so eventually it will click.
Carey:Oh yeah. No, it's, it's it's miserable. I can't say one
Lisa:what's weird is we will have conversations that are great. I feel like I'm really getting to know him, and then all of a sudden he just flips to this teenager. I'm just like, okay, nevermind.
Meags:Hor hormones are no joke
Lisa:Oh, I know.
Carey:Yeah, that's
Lisa:I had no idea boys could be so moody. I thought it was just girls.
Drea:It's all
Kathy:No, no.
Lisa:Mm-hmm.
Kathy:You grew up with boys. How did you not know that?
Lisa:They were my brothers. They were just annoying all the time. I don't know.
Drea:Mm.
Lisa:Well, and like my younger brother, I mean, he was like another child. Well, I wouldn't say he was one of my children, but he was eight years younger than me. Like I went away to college and he was still a little kid. I don't know.
Drea:Yeah.
Lisa:I missed that point in his life.
Drea:Mm. All right, you guys. You ready to start learning some science shit.
Carey:Yeah, sure.
Lisa:Yep,
Drea:All right.
Lisa:for it.
Drea:I've been digging on this a lot, so, but I'm gonna give you guys three choices. We're gonna start with interaction. What do you, what do you guys think we're gonna cover today? We, and so the first one is Wild Creatures of the Sea. Next is fungi, and next is the science of laughter.
Kathy:Well
Lisa:Science of what?
Meags:I think if you're so excited, then it's fun. Fun guy. Punji,
Lisa:Oh,
Meags:how, however we say that word.
Lisa:That sounds like Andrea Fungi.
Meags:That sound like that sounds like something that she would be excited about. So I feel like it's what
Carey:Go for it.
Drea:All right. It's Fu
Meags:I, you so.
Drea:I know. I know. It's the. Kingdom.
Kathy:A timeout weeks ago you told me that we were gonna learn about EXOS at some
Drea:We, we are, but I was, I was already in the middle of, of researching the, the fungi, so, but I did, I'm sorry, WEX.
Lisa:like, it's like Kathy was all prepared for the other.
Drea:That would've been the weird creatures. Well, not of the sea. That would've been a weird creature of a weird, just a weird creature. A weird, so we'll get to it. Just not today, cuz we got the, we got the, so the fungi, I, I obviously, I've listened to a shit load of podcasts and things to find out how to actually pronounce this word, but they usually, it's either fungi or fungi usually. So I went, went with fungi. But it's all fun, right? It's all got the fun in it. So get it.
Kathy:Yeah, we got it.
Meags:Yeah, we got it.
Lisa:That's
Drea:That was my, that was my mom joke. So anyway. All right, so let's get rolling. What, what the hell is a fungus or a fungi? A fungus. All right. Yeah. Fungus is any group of spore producing organisms feeding on organic metal matter, and that includes moles, yeasts, mushrooms, and toad stools. So, and this is actually, we have a hundred, like roughly 125,000. Fungi cataloged, like, as different species so far, but they think actually that there are like 2 million different kinds out there, but we might not get to all of'em before. A lot of'em are gonna go extinct probably before because we're gonna knock all that shit down. Whatever trees are they're attached to, they're gonna be like, eh, so, so we want, we probably won't get to see all of them, but we'll probably, they probably will catalog more. But they were considered, they were actually considered to be plants until 1969, which is kind of
Carey:Oh six nine. Wow.
Drea:Yeah, yeah. Like, people just couldn't, they couldn't accept it. They're like, these, these, these are, this is a sub form of plants. This is a sub form of plants. They just couldn't let it go, you know?
Lisa:when were microscopes invented, I mean like that they were strong enough to look at them. You know what I
Drea:Oh, it has to have been hundreds of
Lisa:way before that,
Kathy:Yes.
Drea:Yeah, that wasn't part of my story though. I don't know. But it is a good
Lisa:thought in my head.
Drea:But you're right, they should, they, they should be able to see spores and stuff in there. That is how they discovered penicillin. They like flew into a, and so definitely there was a microscopes when penicillin was discovered. But I don't think it was hundreds of years ago, but that happened. All right. So anyway, fungus, they've got a cap. So the cap of it, the mushroom, it's, it's actually the flour. So but the body of a fungus is called mycelium and it spreads. It's so cool. It spreads underneath the soil. And like, from what I can tell, like fungus are kind of like teenage boys who are just raiding the kitchen. So, but like instead, I don't have, boy, I don't have boys, so I don't have this problem, but I've heard from you guys that like, they will just chug down like a gallon of milk and then they're gonna blow through all of your chips and salsa. Well, that, I mean like fungus, like dead trees and animals and dead people and plants and ro and animals. That is their, that, that their teenage boys sucking that shit down, but they are
Lisa:Groceries have
Drea:it
Lisa:more and more expensive.
Drea:Yeah. So But they also, and this is the badass thing I learned, they actually eat rocks. So, so fun. They eat, I mean, they eat fucking rocks. I was like, oh my God, that's so cool. Yeah. So about a billion years ago, what.
Carey:I, I just pictured this blob like, Growing over everything and sucking it all up.
Lisa:Yeah. Like the movie, the Blob, you know, that just rolls and like sucks people up. Yeah, that's,
Carey:what if it gets too big and it starts sucking us up and then we become mushroom?
Meags:Okay, so you know, there's like a whole game and like. Very popular TV series based on this, right?
Carey:Really? Mushrooms.
Drea:Yeah.
Meags:Yeah.
Drea:Well, mushroom, pe, mushrooms eating people.
Meags:Mushrooms eating people.
Carey:No kidding.
Drea:Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa:meeting people. I'm so confused.
Carey:What is it?
Kathy:It's a good show.
Drea:Yeah, we'll discuss
Lisa:it, what's the show called?
Drea:the last of us.
Meags:Right.
Lisa:The Last Oh, I have heard of the Last of
Carey:Oh,
Drea:Yeah,
Carey:didn't know what it was about Mushrooms eating us.
Lisa:some big.
Drea:well it is pandemic.
Meags:The
Lisa:Yeah.
Meags:the,
Lisa:I don't know if I wanna
Meags:that they are dealing with is, is based on a very specific sort of mushroom that is full of terrifying things. And I'm gonna, I bet you it's Andrea's list, so I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say what it does, but,
Lisa:please don't.
Carey:Oh wow. Well, cool. I, I, I can't
Lisa:So what, you know what, what streaming service is this on
Drea:hbo. It's on hbo.
Carey:soon to be just Max.
Lisa:Oh, I saw that cuz Yeah, we have HBO Max right now and I think I saw something about that
Meags:But if you, if you have gamers at your house, they, it's actually based on a video game, so they may have already played through it, like they've played through it multiple times already at my house. So they already knew everything about everything and, and knew a shocking, a shocking amount about the whole mushroom part of things.
Drea:Oh yeah.
Meags:to get caught up. I think
Lisa:Now this is a show my, so this is a show my children might wanna watch.
Drea:Maybe.
Meags:Well, yeah, I mean, it's a show that is, is based on a very popular
Lisa:Finding, finding a show that me and my children wanna watch together is difficult right now.
Drea:Okay,
Meags:I put that on
Drea:learn, we're gonna learn more about fungus and then you can like, you can blow them out of the water. With all of this information you've got,
Lisa:Sure. Love that.
Drea:you'll.
Lisa:Let me tell you about these mushrooms.
Drea:I know. So, yeah, so, but this is what really, this truly is, like what happened a billion years ago, the the, I don't know, the fungus, they came out of the, you know, let's see. I'm gonna go back and read my actual script here. So, about a years, a mil, a billion years ago, the earth was, it really was just a bunch of rocks in water. So it was just like sitting around being rocks in water. And so like, do you guys remember way back when we were talking about the, this holiday special? And I told you that plants climbed out and it's okay if you don't remember this, but they climbed out and they broke up rocks and then, and then, and they broke'em down and then like, and they did, but the fungus, the fungi were kind of like fluff girls for the.
Lisa:Oh, okay.
Drea:For the yeah, this is not for children. Not for children, although they might not know what a fuck girl is, but now that I wanna go and look
Lisa:stuff just goes over kids' heads.
Drea:Yeah. So anyway but anybody that knows that I'm presenting should know not to let kids listen to it. So yeah. So anyway they had, so the, so basically fungi was more fluff girls. And they got the rocks all kinds of warmed up. And so now I'm gonna quote something from Fungus Thei Kingdom by Civil Disturbia, and it's on YouTube. Fungus spores release acids that acid that breaks into the rock surface and fast growing fungal filaments, hfe drill into the rock to extract a meal of minerals using pressure a hundred times greater than in a car tire. The tips of the hy fee can crush the rock. So, They're like crushing wa rocks for like a half a billion years. So they like, this is a billion years ago. And then they do it for about a half a billion years ago. And then that is when the algae was like, oh, that's when the algae decided they wanted to get outta the water. Right. So the al.
Carey:Why? Was it because the mushrooms were leaving? They felt they needed to leave too?
Drea:Well, I don't, I don't think that the, I think that the they're not as bright, honestly. Like the o took a long time to decide to come outta the water, so I don't know. I dunno what their problem
Carey:Stupid seaweed.
Drea:That's right. God damn. So, okay, so anyway, so. So, yeah, so they crawled out of the land like the algae. They came on up and and so the, actually the fungus kind of noticed and said it was like this. She would be easier to stuff suck nutrients outta these algae guys than the goddamn rock. And and really like the, the getting your nutrients from algae is kind of like getting eating putty pudding instead of biscotti, right? So instead of getting your nutrients from Iraq, Which is like the biscotti. You can get it from pudding, which is the algae. And so the fungus came up to the algae and said, Hey man, what's up? And the algae said, yo, yo, yo. I just got up on land and damn tired. And so the fungus says, I got some minerals all caught up in mycelium. You wanna see and exhausted and not.
Lisa:I was Andrea Storytelling. Go on.
Drea:I know, I know. I would've been a great sixth grade math teacher.
Meags:That you aren't allowed to talk to children. I mean, other than that part, I think it would've been great. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Drea:So okay, so the fungus, it like whip, you know, so it whips out, it's mycelium and then the algae toes it, and it's like, man, that shit is unreal. And so when the algaes is you checking out the product, the fungus gets a width of the algae sugar, and, and then like, bam. It's like an immediate addiction. And so they made a deal, right? They make this deal. The fungus would give the algae minerals in exchange for algae sugar. And so they have formed this symbiotic relationship for the last 500 million years.
Carey:Wow,
Drea:Isn't that fucking crazy?
Carey:that's pretty cool.
Drea:Yeah. Yeah. So Anyway, so that's, that's called the symbiosis. That's, I mean, there's more shit to it, but that's, that's all you need to know about the symbiosis. And so I'm gonna actually, but I am gonna skip. So, you know, I'm gonna skip to about 420 million million years ago because actually, so, like cuz fungus apparently ruled the land and the fungus, there's a specific type of fungus and it was called protists. And it grew all over the place. And it was 24 feet. It was roughly like 24 feet tall and three feet wide. And if you look at a picture of it and if you want to, it's P R O T O T A X I T E S. And it grew everywhere. And,
Meags:It was like
Drea:it, but it looked like a tw, like a force full of penises. It was like a force of penises. Like big green penises, and so I was like, that's just wild. Can you imagine just like a penis
Carey:God was like, no, I don't like that design.
Lisa:There's this one design that does well.
Carey:Oh, that was a fail.
Drea:So anyway, so they got, they that was really all I had to say about them. There was nothing else significant about them other than they were really big. And so they, but they think that the scientists think they disappeared once insects started coming up on land and eating'em. So I was like, well, okay, well that's cool. So that was really just a side note. So I have another question for you guys, but pre, and this is the present day. What temperature range do you think? Fung prefer 20 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, 40 to 60, or 70 to 90.
Carey:It does what It, it
Drea:It like no where? No,
Kathy:to 60.
Drea:where it likes to hang out and grow.
Carey:Oh, okay. Yeah. I think I'd go with Kathy. 40 to 60.
Kathy:2060.
Lisa:I really don't know.
Meags:I must say that. It's pretty versatile and it could do any of those, but it likes the hottest one, the best.
Lisa:I feel like when it's hot is when it's the most active. Right. So I'll go with the warmest just to be different.
Drea:Okay, well, so it likes between 70 and 90
Carey:Ah.
Drea:Fahrenheit,
Lisa:you go. See it likes. There you go.
Drea:but.
Lisa:It's when it likes to go crazy.
Drea:Yeah, so so it likes to hang out like in the meadows in the forests and like I said, they've got this symbiotic relationship, but particularly they are symbiotic with tree roots. So I'm actually gonna take like one last step into deep time cuz again, I don't know if you guys remember, but we discussed the mass extinction that took place six. 65 million years ago. It's one of my favorite mass extinctions cuz it's when an asteroid cracked into, crashed into Cancun and it wiped out all the non avian dinosaurs and it led to the rise of the mammals.
Lisa:All right.
Drea:Yeah,
Carey:All right.
Drea:I think I, I'm a little bit too high on that. It's like the rise of the animal, the mammals, it, I don't know. I'll have to work on it anyway, so I just learned that.
Lisa:I'm sorry if you guys hear me running. It's got really windy outside all of a sudden and we had like tornadic weather last night, so I might run away. Just fy. Sorry,
Drea:I had a really shitty migraine the other night because the, the barometric pressures went down, so I get
Lisa:So sorry about that. Just.
Drea:so anyway, so like that is interesting though. Like this, the, the Fahrenheit thing or the temperature thing is interesting because At that time, you know, all of those ma, all of those dinosaurs died. So there was a bunch of dinosaurs needing to decay so the fungus, like they could, fungis, just could have destroyed the whole planet, like completely taken over again. But the mammals, they can't, the mammals are too hot. Like we're all, we all run more than 90 degrees. So that's why they didn't, they didn't, they weren't able to eat us. So and that's a very good thing. So it's very hard to get a fungal infection like as a mammal. So, but if the, if they do, if the fungus, if the fungus do adapt, then we will probably be living a whatever the, the TV show, the video game.
Kathy:The last of us.
Drea:The last of us. We hope they can never like because they're also. Like more related to us than plants. So like, they must have like on the, whatever the tree the tree of life, the whole tree our kingdoms probably broke off like more closely together. So like, fungus are more like humans. So it's actually really hard to treat a fungal a fungal whatever infection because. It'll kill us. Like what would kill them would kill us. Like when, when it comes to like treatments. So it's it's not a very, they're only like two or three different fungal medicines in the world are antifungals. So, but that's not for this episode. I'm sorry, I got digressed in. I got dig rested. So, All right, so there are two kinds of fungus fungi. There are two kinds of fungis. They're the death eaters and they like break down the plants and the animal animal material. And of course they unlock nutrients that plants use as food and like we do too. So they make dirt, right? They make dirt. And then I'm not really gonna talk about them right now. I just wanted to kind of like establish the three, two kinds. But what I really wanna talk about is a second kind of fungi, and it's literally called the worldwide web. It was definitely called that before we got our worldwide web. And it, and it lives beneath the trees and the plants. And these kind of fungi, like fungi, they find tree roots. They actually find tree roots, and then they wiggle inside of the tree roots. And they they, well, let's see. They release, basically they release water and minerals into the tree roots themselves. So they're actually tangled up in their, in the tree roots. And they, they do the exchange for the sugars. Right. So And then they release, they release the water and minerals into the tributes, and then they get the sugar like we've already talked about. But what I didn't really understand, and this says kind of go back to the, the boys, right? They release the whole forest is connected like this, and they, the fungus, the fungi never stops growing. Like it's, it never stops growing. They just keep attaching, like keep attaching from tree to tree. It's a tree. And I was like, can you imagine that? Like, literally, it never stops growing. So you can be like, think about how big a forest can be. Like it could, they all attached throughout the, the entire forts forest. So I think that's pretty cool. So the,
Meags:communicate too, right? Like they're not just attached, like they can actually communicate with each other.
Drea:oh yeah, we're totally getting into that. We are gonna talk about
Meags:I think that's like the, when things get really freaky, so like, I think that's perfect. Okay. Sorry, I, I'll.
Drea:so, and then the fungus, they are, they have pride. They're like, so they're all different colors of the rainbow. And so they're pink and purple. And, and, and why? It is like a, it's like a rainbow. It's like a, it's like a, you know, you guys know you're prideful. And so they're like and they can, they're so. Connected, and they're so entrenched that they actually look like gauze when they're, like, if you were to pull it out, you could see like, it's like thick, like gauze. And then of course these plants and the fun fungi work together and it becomes a super organism, which I mean that is just like bad ass.
Carey:it is. Yeah.
Drea:And talk about the connectedness, the interconnectedness of the
Carey:Right. I mean, but, but mushroom seems like, you know, like, like a drunk frack guy, not asking for consent, just catch everything. He comes along to
Drea:whatever. I can get
Carey:putting his DNA everywhere.
Drea:All right, so what's, what, okay, so I'm getting, there's another question. I think this is my last question, but What, what is, where do you think the most humongous fungus is
Carey:Humongous fungus.
Drea:the most? Oh, I have, I have options. We have Utah, Oregon, Michigan, and Maine.
Carey:Mm-hmm.
Meags:Oh.
Carey:I would say Utah based on temperature.
Drea:Go with Michigan.
Lisa:I'm gonna go with Michigan.
Meags:So I'm gonna go with Oregon cuz they have all those super old forests.
Carey:Yeah, they do. That's true.
Kathy:I, I would,
Meags:are, their forests are older than the forest here.
Kathy:my guess would be Oregon also.
Drea:It's Utah.
Meags:Oh.
Carey:Woohoo.
Lisa:Ooh.
Drea:Yeah. I'm like sitting here thinking like, God, I hope I got that right. You guys can double check if. Yeah, maybe I was doing some mushrooms. I don't know. So anyway so we're gonna talk now, we're gonna get into the really, really good stuff where you gonna talk about like how nature, like get how we fucked up nature, so how we fucked up these trees in the, in their, you know, the symbiosis. So and I, I'd have to tell you like I got most of the information, information. In this next section from a fresh air episode called Trees, talk to each other, mother Tree ecologist here. Here's lesson for me for people too. Golly, I'm gonna say that one more time. I apologize. Trees talk to each other. Mother Tree ecologist. Here's lessons for people. Two. I don't know. That sounds weird. I'm gonna keep going though.
Kathy:Okay. I understand the words, but not when you put them together like that.
Drea:Yeah, I don't think I put them together. Right. But I'm too lazy to go and find it. So it was a Fresh Air episode. And the reason, and I actually, I, I didn't wanna read the book cuz I, I knew I wouldn't. So I didn't get it. I just listened to the Fresh Air episode. But the reason I even got interested in this topic is because I watched a documentary where this professor, Suzanne Simmered. Who actually she did, she wrote the book and she's a forest ecologist and she spoke about her research into how forests work and she discovered that fungi I is the, it really, the dirt is like, it plays a crucial role in the health and survival of treats. So I found it to be super interesting. And so this is some of her stories. So when she was at college, Back in the 1970s, she worked for a logging company somewhere in Canada. She's Canadian, so she worked for this logging camp company in Canada and her company was clear cutting spruce trees, so she was responsible for for planting seedlings. And rose where the trees had been. And she'd grown up in the, she'd grown up in the Canadian forest. So this was like very weird to her cuz that's not how trees grow, you know? Like they grow, they don't grow like that. But she was, you know, she's out there and she was working. And so she would, but what she was doing is what she her, her spruce seedlings, they were not doing very well.
drea-diet:They were, let's see, they were ill, they were completely ill, and she didn't understand why. So she noticed though, that when she pulled up the spruce seedlings from the regular forest, they had fun fungi growing underneath. But when she pulled up the the logging company spruce seedlings, their roots were black and, and they hadn't grown out of their plugs at all. And so she eventually figured out that the fungus was a special kind of fungus called my CROs Fungus. And it's the kind of fungus that weaves into the roots and gives the trees, the nutrients from the water in exchange for sugar. But she, she, like, literally, she had no idea how it worked. So she had, she had, she had no idea how to work, but like I, you know, I you know, like I also was listening to this other podcast and it took men until 1875 to figure out how babies were made. So I was like, you know, we should cuts in slack.
kathy-diet:Yeah. I mean, yeah. How, how could she know exactly how it worked immediately when, first upon seeing it?
drea-diet:Exactly. Exactly. Although I, did
kathy-diet:they're like, they're like giver, they're like giver roots, basically, right? Like they, they, they give nutrients to other roots.
drea-diet:they, do they give nutrients? The, do you mean the. Well, the fun the fungi gives, well, I don't know if it gives Yeah, they do. They must kind of shepherd nutrients from one tree to the next.
kathy-diet:like, like, Hey, you need this. They're like, you know, like bartering,
drea-diet:Yeah, yeah,
kathy-diet:fungus, like, Hey, you need this. I'm gonna take a list from you. I'm this or the other bar guy over here. And
drea-diet:yeah, exactly. Yeah. So she, yeah. Yeah, they broker it. So so anyway, so Suzanne Stewart she had, or I don't think that said her last name right? But whatever simmered she put some of the pieces of the puzzle together. But she couldn't do it all. So she decided she needed to go, she needed to go get some more learning. And so she went back, she got herself a PhD in forestry in Oregon and then she got a job with the Canadian Ministry of Natural Resources in forestry. And the forestry, the forest, I dunno why, but the forestry industry had not taken the advice and they cut out down all their fucking trees and they're trying, so they're trying to reforest the land with the Douglas first just like they had done with the spruce trees. And the Douglas firs, they just kept getting sick with this disease called Amarillo root Disease. So, yeah. Yeah. So Dr. Seward, she grew up in the woods and she remembered that these birch and the Douglas firs they kind of grew up in the same area. And that the devil first, There we're doing a hell of a lot better than the ones that the guys in the forestry area were trying to grow. So she, like, she hypothesized to them that the trees were working together and the men were just, they were not having it. They felt very challenged by this, you know, by her, you know, by her supposition here, that perhaps there was something going on between these two trees. Because they really were just about, they believed that the trees were competing with each other for resources, and it was the survival of the fittest. So she decided to say, fuck you. I'm gonna test my hypothesis. And so she didn't say, fuck you. I added that for
meags-diet:She might have said, fuck you.
drea-diet:She might have said, fuck you. I did go
lisa-diet:just wasn't recorded.
drea-diet:it wasn't recorded. Maybe she said it under her breath, or maybe she just said, F you.
meags-diet:Yeah, I mean, she's Canadian, so you're right. She might have just said F you
drea-diet:Yeah. She might have been
meags-diet:in in the most polite way possible. Yes,
lisa-diet:Mm-hmm.
kathy-diet:probably said, she probably said, please go fuck yourself.
lisa-diet:Hey,
meags-diet:I'm pretty sure that she would've said, please go fuck yourself a.
lisa-diet:hey. Exactly. Yay. Mm-hmm.
drea-diet:Exactly. That's exactly. So, so she she planted a little clumps of trees and she clumped birch and a Douglas fur and a cedar. And of course I was like, why would you put a, a cedar with them? Because like the cedar, like they grow, I don't know, they grow down here. But I, I don't like in the desert, but what ebbs that's what she did. And so, but what she did is she traced how the carbon molecules, like how they scooted around and she saw that the birch and the Douglas fur were, they were like playing underground fussies with each other. These were micro crosol fungus, you know, they're like, Hmm, I live on you. But there was not a threesome, like that's, the cedar was not having any of it, and it was because it has a different kind of micro ProSal fungus. And it was really like too uptight to even actually acknowledge the existence of the birch in the, in the Douglas fir. It was just like, It was snooty. Yeah. The Cedars snooty. And so one thing she did that I thought was interesting is she shaded the Douglas tree to see what the birch would do, and the birch sent up to 10% of its carbon to the Douglas Fair to make up for the lack of light, which I was like,
meags-diet:kinda cool.
drea-diet:it is. It's kind of badass, you know? Yeah. It's like these trees know what They're new.
lisa-diet:Honestly, they're smart.
drea-diet:I know. Well, they have been around for half a billion years. They've been working
meags-diet:they, they've been smart all along. It just took us for a while to catch on to how smart they were.
lisa-diet:Figure it out.
drea-diet:Yeah. Yeah. And we're still figuring it out. So let's see. So she also wanted to know, this is interesting. So she wanted to know if, like, sick trees could be nursed to health by their neighbors. And so she discovered that when a Douglas fur is stressed out, that it will send it'll send warning signals to its neighbors. So it's like beep, beep, beep, beep. And then the neighbors spout their defense enzymes, and then they are more resistant to the diseases. So like, so like the, like, and this happens with, you know, like if bugs are infesting a tree, then it'll send out messages to other trees through the, through their fungus and say, Hey dude, you gotta protect yourselves. You gotta protect yourselves. And so they do. So it's like I mean, it's almost like a. Oh, I don't know what I was trying to say. Like when you immunize yourselves. Hmm.
meags-diet:say, it's almost like a phone tree, like they call a friend. That friend calls two friends, Zach. Those people calls two friends.
drea-diet:Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And also, like, it's also a benefit to them because the healthier your neighbor is, the healthier you are, right? So like, if they're in good shape, you're in good shape. So she also figured out the trees can, they'll transmit messages just to their relatives. So like, like they know the other trees that they're related to in the you know, like in the neighborhood. And so a mother tree can sense with one of her, like weather. Something like a seedling is hers or a strangers. And so then if it's hers, then she, she favors her own child. Like usually I'm sure she would she would choose to send more carbon to her kin than to a stranger. And of course they do it all like through this, the, the fungi connecting the forest together. So I was like, this is just really like amazing what the trees and like all the plants and the fungi have fungi have figured out like in half a billion years. I mean, it's amazing. It's really, I think it's pretty wild. So,
meags-diet:wild.
drea-diet:so that's it.
meags-diet:it's very wild.
drea-diet:I know, I know.
meags-diet:It makes you wonder like what else is happening right underneath our noses that we're completely oblivious to
kathy-diet:Right.
meags-diet:because like, clearly this is happening like in my yard. I have no idea. I have zero idea.
drea-diet:know
meags-diet:like, what else is, happening in my yard? I don't even, I'm afraid to ask, but at the same time, I'm, I'm curious. Now
drea-diet:I too.
meags-diet:me curious.
drea-diet:Well, I don't know. Maybe in part two I'll go into that. I dunno. I dunno. But I, I appreciate you guys hanging out and letting me you know, tell you all about the, the fungi and, and we will, we'll have more fun with the fungi next time.
kathy-diet:There's fungus among
lisa-diet:for fun with the fun.
drea-diet:Yeah. We'll have some humongous fungus. Fun.
meags-diet:There's a fungus among us.
kathy-diet:Yeah, there's a fungus among us.
meags-diet:I almost bought you that sticker this week. I saw it and I was like,
drea-diet:Oh, and I'm gonna get you guys the, the fat soap
meags-diet:Julie noted
drea-diet:and me. We'll all have it. All right. Goodnight ladies.
meags-diet:night.
drea-diet:I'll see you later. Bye.
lisa-diet:Hi.