Fungi: The Weird, Ancient Lifeform That Runs the World

Without this one thing, every single thing you know and love would disappear. Soil would fail, forests would starve, antibiotics would, well, vanish, and your morning coffee, bread, beer, and even chocolate would be gone.

The thing I’m talking about is everywhere. It’s probably in your lunch. It’s almost certainly in your lungs. It’s in your sourdough starter, your compost heap.

Got a clue yet?

Most people don’t actually know what these things are.

I’m talking about fungi. Fungi are not plants, not animals, not bacteria — they’re something else entirely. And they’re really, really old.

They’re older than dinosaurs, older than sharks — they might even be older than plants, depending on how you define a plant.

Today, I’m diving into something I’m actually violently allergic to: fungus. I’m covering everything from what fungi actually are (because it turns out most of us have no idea) to why they might be the most important thing on Earth… ish.

In this episode I share:

• What prokaryotes and eukaryotes are
• What fungi actually are
• The different types of fungi
• How fungi moved from ocean to land and began a symbiotic relationship with plants
• How fungi can decompose almost anything — including radiation
• Zombie fungus (and whether we should worry)
• How fungi reproduce
• Why they’re incredibly useful
• Some of the annoying and dangerous things they do
• How we might use fungi to help fix the planet.

Key quotes:

"Fungi are more closely related to us than to plants."

"Turns out plants talk way more than you think they do."

Sources:

Billion-year-old fungal fossils (Nature 2019): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1217-0

Armillaria “humongous fungus” 9 km² individual: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/

Prototaxites 8 m Silurian-Devonian giant: https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-giant-fossils-may-be-world-s-oldest-known-terrestrial-fungi

90 % of plants with mycorrhizae (Nature Scitable): https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/an-ecological-and-evolutionary-perspective-on-mycorrhizal-24286790/

Mycorrhizal carbon sink 3–7 Gt CO₂ yr⁻¹ (Science 2022): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf3457

Penicillin discovery background (Nobel Prize): https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1945/fleming/facts/

Statins from Penicillium citrinum (review): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5958453/

Cyclosporine discovery story: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7568434/

Psilocybin phase-II depression trial (JAMA Psychiatry 2021): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2787297

Plastic-eating fungus Pestalotiopsis microspora (2011 study): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22269855/

CDC overview of Candida auris drug resistance: https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/candida-auris/

Chytrid fungus amphibian decline paper (Science 2006): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1125069

Mycoremediation and mycofiltration review (Biodegradation 2018): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10532-018-0914-8

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