Gee Whiz facts

[K N and P J Harris]

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> bionet/mycology #2693, from prose at northcoast.com, 1030 chars, Tue  08 
Apr 1997 21:18:32 -0
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> From: P Rose <prose at northcoast.com>
> Newsgroups: bionet.mycology
> Subject: Gee Whiz facts
> Date: Tue, 08 Apr 1997 21:18:32 -0700
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> I am looking for fungi "Gee Whiz" facts.  Does anyone have any fungi
> facts that would make a common folk take notice?  Thanx
> -- 
>     ?                   Don't recycle.  Reuse.
>    @ @           
>   ( ^ )           Patti Ann Rose - Seeker, Writer, Activist
> (       )  prose at northcoast.com    <--->   par7 at axe.humboldt.edu
>   ^  ^
Hi Patti,
More strength to your elbow, people really should realise what a 
spectacular world they live in - shame some of it is so small.

Silly and obvious point - you like beer? you like bread ? would you like 
to try it without the input of fungi ? (yeasts are fungi) I doubt it !

Less obvious. There is a spectacular little fungus that lives in cow 
dung called Pilobilus that used a "watercannon" device to shoot its 
spore bundle out into the great wide world. Problem is, if it gets its 
aim wrong it just hits the inside of the cow dung pile. So it used the 
pressurised watersack as a lens to assess the direction of the best 
opening to the daylight to align itself so that when it goes "pop" the 
spores get shot off into the open air. Pretty smart really - think what 
the same navigational aid costs NASA !

Peter Harris,
Department of Soil Science,
The University of Reading, U.K.
AKA <P.J.Harris at reading.ac.uk>