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Plan to use mushrooms to clean up oil contamination
By Clare Kendall
Last Updated: 5:01pm BST 08/08/2008
An anonymous British donor is funding a project which may help clean up the bespoiled landscape.
The process, supported by American charity, The Cloud Institute is called mycoremediation.
It was pioneered in the US by mushroom advocate Paul Stamets who believes fungus could have a role to play in helping restore land damaged by pollution.
"Mushrooms are the world's great recyclers," said Miss Work. "They eat trash!
"Something they really love to eat is wood but wood and oil are made of the same thing, carbon. We know in the lab they will eat petroleum, we want to find them the best environment in the field. The question isn't 'does it work' it's about maximising effects.
"The decontamination task here is huge."
The technology they're developing isn't entirely new. Last November it was used in the clean up operation following the San Francisco oil spill but this is the first time it's been attempted in the tropics.
"We want to take it out of the lab and into the jungle!" said Miss Work.
In a shed just a few yards from one of the many oil pipelines which criss-cross Ecuador's jungle and which has brought so much misery to it's indigenous people, the team is cultivating oyster mushrooms.
"Oyster mushrooms are particularly versatile and aggressive," said Mr Page.
"We're starting with them but we want to find mushrooms which naturally like oil. If we could develop a strain of mushroom whose particular ecological niche was oil pollution and nothing else, that would be our dream!"
He added: "You can't just put the mushrooms in the oil and expect a miracle," he says, "You need to feed them too. We find sawdust is very good and also human hair.
"We had a hair delivery this morning and we have high hopes for it. It's very absorbent and the mushrooms love it. We're also doing trials with sugar cane husk, coconut shell and banana leaves."
Ricardo Viteri, the third party in the project, explained how the fungus breaks down the oil: "We define life by how it eats," he said.
"Mushrooms secrete enzymes to digest food outside their bodies, and then absorb the nutrients that the digestion process releases.
"The same enzyme mushrooms use to digest lignin, a main component of wood, is used to digest petroleum."
Mr Viteri is keen to point out that this is, at best, not a cure and that thousands of square hectares of polluted jungle cannot be restored.
"We're afraid people will think this is a miracle solution which it isn't," he said,
"We can't do anything about the oil pits in their raw state. Nothing in nature can deal with that but what we can do is make the soil resuseable after the bulk has been removed. Then people could regenerate their own 'patch'.
"This would be an amazing thing for the people here, to be able to remediate their own land."
The trio are currently keeping a low profile, unwilling to reveal their plans until the project is ready.
"We want to perfect our technique before we roll it out," said Miss Work. "We don't want to make promises and then not deliver."
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I think this is very promising for the environment. What do you think? By Clare Kendall Last Updated: 5:01pm BST 08/08/2008 ... more -
Mushrooms can save the world!
Paul Stamets, a living legend and mushroom guru, points out the potential mycelium, or mushroom 'roots', have to solve real world problems.
With all magical mushroom jokes aside, using this natural 'bio-technology' will change our world.
Alleviate your home of termites for 50 cents - he can do it.
Remediate polluted soil of hydrocarbons/petrochemicals - he has done it.
Grow a cure for small pox and the flu - he is working on it. Paul Stamets, a living legend and mushroom guru, points out the potential mycelium, or mushroom 'roots', have to solve real ... more -
Psilocybin treatment of death anxiety
Heffter Research Institute's board member Charles S. Grob was surprised when the producers of the Fox Television Network's "The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet" asked him to talk live about his psilocybin research with cancer patients. Grob sent them to Norbert Litzinger, volunteer Director of Development and husband of Pam Sakuda, a patient in the study who passed away a year and a half ago. The live interviews with Grob, Litzinger and another of Grob's subjects -- is heartening to watch.
For more information - www.heffter.org Heffter Research Institute's board member Charles S. Grob was surprised when the producers of the Fox Television Network's &... more -
Mushrooms lead to arrests
I posted a couple of these stories.
There have been hundreds of these stories recently so I felt the need to post a few. Chock one up for the local police departments for taking advantage of unjust laws and ruining the lives of countless free and law abiding Americans for the political purpose of making a headline. These do good police departments take photos of the loot they've pillaged from young and old alike. They pose smiling next to the Ziploc baggies of "contraband." We as a public at large praise them for their deeds, not thinking of the many years those people the police have just robbed will spend in jail, or the ruined lives they'll lead once they get out of jail, forever tattooed as a felon. We cheer when the local DA goes on the evening news to show us how they've just arrested someone's grand parents in a supposed marijuana ring. When it's time to allocate funds we pay millions upon millions of dollars to help organized criminals like the DEA and the local and state authorities to investigate, rob, and then put in jail our family, friends, neighbors, doctors, lawyers, priests, mailmen, professors and so on. These people they arrest are people like you and I. They are users and entrepreneurs alike. All fallen victim to the American Drug War and Narcotics Prohibition at large.
BIXBY, Okla. (AP) - Felony complaints have been filed against six people accused of possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Bixby Police Officer Erik Smoot says the psilocybin mushrooms, nicknamed "shrooms," are hallucinogens that create the same effect as LSD but on a lesser scale.
Officials say 19-year-old Ryan Patrick Jackson of Broken Arrow and 22-year-old Christopher Kyle Brown of Bixby were arrested on July 16. Police reportedly found the two bagging up about 8 pounds of the illegal mushrooms behind a business.
Eighteen-year-old Jimmy Grammer of Bixby and three juveniles were taken into custody on Friday in rural Bixby with a small amount of the mushrooms and a small amount of marijuana.
The six were booked with possession of a controlled dangerous substance. No charges have been filed. I posted a couple of these stories. ... more -
First timer's guide to magic mushrooms
This article is provided for informational purposes only. Please use your own judgment in deciding what to do with it. Be aware that magic mushrooms are illegal to possess in many countries This article is provided for informational purposes only. Please use your own judgment in deciding what to do with it. Be aware that m... more
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Magic Mushrooms & Spirituality
Hallucinogenic mushrooms, long valued by Central American cultures for their mystical qualities, may enhance the spirituality of people of faith, according to a new study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Volunteer subjects reported conversing with God, experiencing ''ultimate transcendence'' and being suspended in a ''tactile field of light.''
According to the study, conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Council on Spiritual Practices, subjects who took doses of psilocybin, a drug found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, reported sustained spiritual and religious benefits 14 months after ingestion.
Sixty-seven percent of participants rated the experience as one of the five most spiritually significant events in their lives, while 64 percent said it had increased their well-being or life satisfaction.
The 36 volunteers had no previous exposure to hallucinogens, and all identified themselves as regularly engaging in religious or spiritual activities.
Participants came from a mix of predominantly Christian backgrounds. Researchers said the results showed no correlation between an individual's denomination and the drug's spiritual effects.
The report is a follow-up to the group's 2006 study in which volunteers were given a single dose of psilocybin once during a two-month period and asked to rate their experience in a series of questionnaires.
Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who led the study, said researchers are ''just scratching the surface'' of the relationship between spirituality and science. Griffiths cautioned that psilocybin is not tantamount to ''God in a pill.''
''There are some people who say this is the meaning of spirituality or God, and it's not,'' Griffiths said. ''These kinds of observations cannot address the ultimate existential question of the existence of God or the existence of a higher power.''
Psilocybin has been used for centuries by indigenous cultures in North and South America but is illegal in the United States. The federal government classifies the drug as a Schedule 1 substance with no medical value. In recent years, research has been conducted to determine whether doses of psilocybin may have beneficial effects for patients with terminal illnesses or severe addictions.
''There are dangers even in a supervised setting,'' warned David Murray, chief scientist for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Murray compared taking psilocybin to playing Russian roulette, saying it can cause fear, joy, elation or weeping, depending on the subject's mental state.
''You never know what you're going to get,'' Murray said. ''It's dangerous.''
Some proponents of the drug argue that psilocybin and other psychoactive substances used in religious ceremonies - known as entheogens - produce chemical changes no different from severe illness or prolonged fasting, which have been known to produce spiritual awakenings.
The Rev. Ken Barnes, a California United Church of Christ pastor and former director of the Council on Spiritual Practices, said bans on psychoactive drugs are part of a larger problem.
''I believe that in our secular society, we've moved away from primary religious experiences,'' said Barnes. ''Entheogens can introduce the spirit in a very dramatic way. I see them mainly as inductors into the spiritual world.''
Barnes expressed optimism that psilocybin would someday follow the same path to legalization as peyote, a hallucinogen found in cactus which was legalized for religious use in 1994. Hallucinogenic mushrooms, long valued by Central American cultures for their mystical qualities, may enhance the spirituality of peopl... more -
6 ways mushrooms can save the earth
In this clip, Mycologist Paul Stamets speaks about 6 ways mycellium fungi could save earth.
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psilocybin for cancer
People struggling with the psychological stress of a cancer diagnosis may wish to ditch the anti-anxiety medications in favor of psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms.
No, they shouldn't run down to the local college campus center waving fistfuls of cash and a Disco Biscuits t-shirt. But they might consider contacting Roland Griffiths, a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist who studies the therapeutic potential of psilocybin. People struggling with the psychological stress of a cancer diagnosis may wish to ditch the anti-anxiety medications in favor of psilo... more -
Benefits from drug in 'magic mushrooms'
A rare study of the drug contained in ``magic mushrooms'' is providing some interesting results that could lead to better treatment for addicts and others. A rare study of the drug contained in ``magic mushrooms'' is providing some interesting results that could lead to better tr... more
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Intravenous milk thistle compound used to save victims of poisonous mushrooms
A family of 6 in California became the first recipients in the United States of an intravenous milk thistle (Silybum marianum, Asteraceae) fruit (seed) extract to treat mushroom poisoning in January of 2007. The US Food and Drug Administration permitted emergency use of the drug Legalon Sil® (Madaus Pharma, Brussels; div. of Madaus AG, Cologne, Germany) for the patients, and 5 of the victims survived the poisoning.
Legalon extract, the world’s first pharmaceutical-grade milk thistle extract, is made from the fruits (often called seeds) of milk thistle, standardized to 80% flavonolignans (silibinin [silybin], silydianin, and silychristin). Numerous published animal studies and human clinical trials have shown that milk thistle extract is safe, has antioxidant properties, assists in regeneration of RNA (ribonucleic acid) in the liver to create new hepatocytes, and eliminates toxins from the liver. The leaves of milk thistle, native to the Mediterranean area, have been used both as an edible plant and as a liver remedy in traditional medicine since Greco-Roman times.
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The stuff from the local health food store would be great too. Milk thistle has been used for over 3,000 years. A family of 6 in California became the first recipients in the United States of an intravenous milk thistle (Silybum marianum, Asterac... more -
Odd things happen in Ohio
Hasn't this happened to all of us at some point in our lives?
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Il miracolo dei funghi
Alcune specie di funghi sono così preziose che il luogo in cui crescono deve rimanere un segreto. Mama ci guida lungo un misterioso percorso alla ricerca di funghi, con i quali cucina poi un prelibato risotto. Alcune specie di funghi sono così preziose che il luogo in cui crescono deve rimanere un segreto. Mama ci guida lungo un misterioso pe... more
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Shroom
Daniel Butler is a journalist, lecturer and novellist living in rural Mid Wales. Every autumn he runs fungi foraging tours in the Elan Valley near his Rhayader home. Recently the Elan Valley Trust banned mushroom picking on the estate. This film follows Daniel as he defies the ban Daniel Butler is a journalist, lecturer and novellist living in rural Mid Wales. Every autumn he runs fungi foraging tours in the Elan... more
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Santa's Magic Mushroom Secret
Modern Christmas traditions are based on ancient mushroom-using shamans, according to this article.
Most of the major elements of the modern Christmas celebration, such as Santa Claus, Christmas trees, magical reindeer and the giving of gifts, are originally based upon the traditions surrounding the harvest and consumption of these most sacred mushrooms.
I'd like to see some sources for these claims, but the last time I ate mushrooms I turned into a flying fat guy, so I won't rule them out either. Modern Christmas traditions are based on ancient mushroom-using shamans, according to this article. ... more -
Magic Mushroom Hunter
psilocybe semilanceata also known as Liberty Caps or Magic Mushrooms grow freely in the UK, although they are illegal. This documentary shows you how to find and identify the magic mushrooms by observing conditions,landscape and the local wildlife. Thomas Rowsell tracks stags during rutting season with a theory that the stags eat hallucinogenic fungi psilocybe semilanceata also known as Liberty Caps or Magic Mushrooms grow freely in the UK, although they are illegal. This documentar... more
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Shroomin' in Poland
Nick Vivion finds himself near the Polish border with Ukraine, spending Sunday afternoon in the woods hunting for wild mushrooms with a Polish family. This is Global Gourmet - on the cheap!
After several hours of searching and learning some Polish words, Nick helps cook the 'shrooms and tries this Eastern European favorite for the first time... Nick Vivion finds himself near the Polish border with Ukraine, spending Sunday afternoon in the woods hunting for wild mushrooms with ... more -
Mushrooms are Magic
Not only are mushrooms a low calorie food, containing only 18 calories per cup, but they are also 90 percent water. Most importantly, all varieties of 'shrooms contain large amounts of an antioxidant called L-ergothioneine, which is only found in fungi. This is a powerful antioxidant that fortunately is not destroyed when mushrooms are cooked.
A variety of animal studies have also found that compounds found in mushrooms may bolster the immune system as well as work to prevent both breast and prostate cancers. Mushrooms are also high in the mineral potassium, which can help lower blood pressure. In fact, five white button mushrooms have as much potassium as an orange.
So the next time you find yourself eating mushrooms, don't bad trip - they're good for you! Not only are mushrooms a low calorie food, containing only 18 calories per cup, but they are also 90 percent water. Most importantly, ... more
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