fungi stranger than fiction

tomorrow is 'fatty thuesday' in Sweden. though we no longer fast, we still like to eat the traditional fattening bun that used to herold the beginning of the fasting period. i guess the fasting was a custom that catholocism brought here once upon a time. fascinating fungi, yeast. how fortunate the ancestors once figured out how to use fungus to make great bread, beer, wine and cheese! not all fungi is fun. i had surgery and antibiotics two months ago. the antibiotics killed off my friendly flora, and something itchy replaced it. (fixed now.)

so, i was researching missing scientists and came across an article about a scientist, Joseph Moshe, that had researched fungi for the american army (biowarfare) since 1952 or something. in the article he was connected to a new strain of airborne Cryptococcus gatti fungi (Cryptococcus neoformans?) that kills like 25% of humans or whatever it infects. cats. it's suspected of causing something called Morgellons disease, and there is a conspiracy theory involving mind control, too. like some parasites (toxoplasma, for one) whatever causes Morgellons, can alter the hosts personality. and there are theories that Morgellans is caused by an engineered nano organism, made by agricultural or bioweapons research, based on "1,3 glukans with an inherent very strong helix-forming character", genetical bits and pieces of ameabas, nematodes, bacteria and parasites. amazing. i really wonder if that was what was in the lake in Iran that Jess took a sample from? there are so many strange life forms in nature! the use of fungi to do work for is ancient, but today they really can genetically engineer fungi to take on new jobs. but some fungi came into existence before we even imagined them. there is an fungi that lives off radiation, for instance, found in Japan and in the Chernobyl area. like the fungi in the manga Nausicaä and the valley of the wind, that purified Earth after nuclear war. that fungi was manmade. in the novel Dreamsnake, there was an alien fungi that altered Earths ecology. the best horror stories with sinister fungi are written by William Hope Hodgson.

oh, sorry, i strayed from reality into fiction again. i tend to do so. oh well, now my very real life baking needs a little work from me, now when the fungi has done it's part.