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

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We derive many other benefits from fungi. Since the discovery of Penicillin (which was developed from a Penicillium fungus species) most other antibiotics come from fungi, at least originally. Now that superbugs such as MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are becoming immune to our current range of antibiotics new medicines are required, and almost certainly they too will be derived from fungi.

8 Astounding Books About Mushrooms and The Fungal World: 8 Astounding Books About Mushrooms and

Do not try to identify mushrooms from appearance alone. Appearances vary greatly from sample to sample, and there are often lookalikes that can only be separated by assessing texture, smell, dimensions, shape of gills (if any) and so on. The descriptions are detailed because without the fine details identification is at best doubtful and at worst dangerous.

What are Fungi?

Some fungi cannot be identified without a microscope, however those in this blog can be identified using macro characteristics displayed by the fruiting body. Most are umbrella or mushroom shaped with gills on the cap underside. Below are some key characteristics to look out for when identifying:

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake review - The Guardian

Entangled Life is a remarkable piece of work that manages to be at once scholarly and visionary and yet remains deeply engaging and enjoyable. Sheldrake provides a new and penetrating analysis of the fungal kingdom of life that will be a greatly enriching read for all students of the living world.” The first of these two is a new book called ‘Entangled Life’ by Merlin Sheldrake. This book covers, in essence, everything that fungi have done, are doing and will do for Humans and the planet. Covering a wide range of fungi, from gourmet and parasitic, to slime moulds and yeasts, this book goes over each and every topic in vividly explained detail alongside some of the authors personal experiences with mycology. I find this a horror, and want to assert our human need to do so, even if the ant experiences nothing that we should call suffering, and it is only as drama that the spectacle is appalling. The fact that Ophiocordyceps has evolved to do this and has no choice makes little difference. A creature’s perceptions and desires have turned into enemies steering it to its death. There is no symbiosis or negotiation. Even a farm animal, a free-range one anyway, has some agency while it lives, but this ant has none. It becomes purely a means to an end desired by another. Human beings sometimes do this, and other abominable things that they often succeed in regarding as right, or normal, or not worth noticing, yet humans alone, as far as we know, have a highly developed ability to see their own natural behaviour as wrong. Reading about the fate of these ants made me grab at the idea of a conscience, however imperfect, that makes us different from fungi, or from a male tiger killing a female’s cubs to bring her into season. Pictures, descriptions, taxonomic history, habitat and distribution information on more than 600 fungi species are available via our Sortable Index Table... New to fungus forays? This book is as hard to put down as a thrilling detective novel, and one of the best works of popular science writing that I have enjoyed in years. Sheldrake has a gift of explaining very complex concepts and serving it all up in such an engaging way that the reader forgets that they are not supposed to understand this stuff.”Bulawa CE. Genetics and molecular biology of chitin synthesis in fungi. Ann Rev Microbiol. 1993; 47:505. [ PubMed : 8257107] You may never look at fungi in the same way… Entangled Life is an eye-opening exploration of this mysterious taxonomic kingdom… a journey into an untapped world. It is both a wonderful collection of fungal feats…and a personal account of Sheldrake’s experiences with these miraculous organisms.” Geoffrey Kibby is one of Britain’s foremost experts on identifying mushrooms in the field and has published a range of excellent guides/handbooks to mushroom identification.