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About 500 million years ago, when aquatic plants began to inch toward land, they couldn’t live there on their own. They enlisted fungal mycelium networks, which served as their root systems for a few tens of millions of years before they developed their own and could live independently. Still, about 90 percent of plants depend … Read more

Even before the onset of the pandemic, which has increased the demand for all manner of so-called organic immunity elixirs, wellness-minded Americans were warming to mushrooms. To be clear, mushrooms don’t cure Covid-19, but they are thought to provide a host of other benefits, from serving as an aphrodisiac to bolstering one’s defenses to toxins. … Read more

Humans have been harnessing the power of yeast for thousands of years. These fungi allow fermentation, the molecular process whereby living cells typically transform sugar or starch into more complex molecules or chemicals. Discovered 10,000 years ago, the technology of liquid fermentation—from mead to beer to spirits—and solid-state fermentation—bread and cheese—helped put humanity on a … Read more