In recent decades we have come to realize that the microbial world is hugely diverse, and can be found in the most extreme environments. Fungi, single-celled protists, bacteria, archaea, and the vast
Everyone is aware of the nineteenth-century Irish potato famine, but fungal diseases of many other crops have had similarly apocalyptic consequences. Today, coffee, cacao, and rubber are threatened by
The variety of the mycological world is far greater than most people imagine. Tens of thousands of fungal species have been described and many more are known only from the abundance of their genes in
Molds are everywhere: we inhale their microscopic spores from birth to death. But when an investigation in Ohio revealed that babies suffering from a serious lung illness had been exposed to a toxic b
A cup of seawater contains 100 million cells, which are preyed upon by billions of viruses. Fifty million tons of fungal spores are released into the atmosphere every year. And the human gut is home t
The overnight appearance of mushrooms in a meadow or on a suburban lawn is a marvelous sight. It is one of many awe-inspiring, magical processes that have evolved among the fungi, yet this group remai
An introductory study on fungi considers a wide range from brewer's yeast and Penicillium to the poisonous death cap, noting significant and history-shaping specimens and considering the lives and wor
The great Victorian biologist Thomas Huxley once wrote, "I know of no familiar substance forming part of our every-day knowledge and experience, the examination of which, with a little care, tends to
