“One study estimated that if a hypha was as wide as a human hand, it would be able to lift an eight-ton school bus.”
― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
“They say a healthy person has a thousand wishes but a sick person has only one wish—to get well.”
― The Spartan Way: Eat Better. Train Better. Think Better. Be Better.
― The Spartan Way: Eat Better. Train Better. Think Better. Be Better.
“Our eyes can distinguish several million colors, our ears can distinguish half a million tones, but our noses can distinguish well over a trillion different odors.”
― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
“Whether one calls slime molds, fungi, and plants “intelligent” depends on one’s point of view. Classical scientific definitions of intelligence use humans as a yardstick by which all other species are measured. According to these anthropocentric definitions, humans are always at the top of the intelligence rankings, followed by animals that look like us (chimpanzees, bonobos, etc.), followed again by other “higher” animals, and onward and downward in a league table—a great chain of intelligence drawn up by the ancient Greeks, which persists one way or another to this day. Because these organisms don’t look like us or outwardly behave like us—or have brains—they have traditionally been allocated a position somewhere at the bottom of the scale. Too often, they are thought of as the inert backdrop to animal life. Yet many are capable of sophisticated behaviors that prompt us to think in new ways about what it means for organisms to “solve problems,” “communicate,” “make decisions,” “learn,” and “remember.” As we do so, some of the vexed hierarchies that underpin modern thought start to soften. As they soften, our ruinous attitudes toward the more-than-human world may start to change. The second field of research that has guided me in this inquiry concerns the way we think about the microscopic organisms—or microbes—that cover every inch of the planet. In the last four decades, new technologies have granted unprecedented access to microbial lives. The outcome? For your community of microbes—your “microbiome”—your body is a planet. Some prefer the temperate forest of your scalp, some the arid plains of your forearm, some the tropical forest of your crotch or armpit. Your gut (which if unfolded would occupy an area of thirty-two square meters), ears, toes, mouth, eyes, skin, and every surface, passage, and cavity you possess teem with bacteria and fungi. You carry around more microbes than your “own” cells. There are more bacteria in your gut than stars in our galaxy. For humans, identifying where one individual stops and another starts is not generally something we”
― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
“Fungi are veteran survivors of ecological disruption. Their ability to cling on—and often flourish—through periods of catastrophic change is one of their defining characteristics. They are inventive, flexible, and collaborative. With much of life on Earth threatened by human activity, are there ways we can partner with fungi to help us adapt? These may sound like the delirious musings of someone buried up to their neck in decomposing wood chips, but a growing number of radical mycologists think exactly this. Many symbioses have formed in times of crisis. The algal partner in a lichen can’t make a living on bare rock without striking up a relationship with a fungus. Might it be that we can’t adjust to life on a damaged planet without cultivating new fungal relationships”
― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Vampire Books Fans, Fangs and Writers
— 1152 members
— last activity Mar 14, 2024 06:54PM
A site for vampire lovers here you can chat about vampires and vampire books, help take part in creating new vampire stories or judge the work of new ...more
Antarctica and Antarctic Exploration
— 13 members
— last activity Jan 30, 2023 05:40PM
Books on Antarctica and Antarctic Exploration
Action Heroine Fans
— 335 members
— last activity 2 hours, 17 min ago
Are you a fan of sword-swinging warrior women, pistol-packing cowgirls, tough female PIs, vampire huntresses, or any of the other strong, brave heroin ...more
LunaSquirrel’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at LunaSquirrel’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by LunaSquirrel
Lists liked by LunaSquirrel























