Jordyn’s Reviews > Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic > Status Update

“…in 1933, he witnessed a riot over milk. Milk prices had fallen, and in some places milk workers went on strike-tipping over milk trucks and beating anyone who got in their way. Nearby, hungry citizens just wanted food, and when they surrounded a milk truck on the streets of Minneapolis, a brawl erupted.” Riots in MPLS aren’t new 👀

~The study found that surviving bats were fatter. Putting on a few extra grams, it turned out, seemed to be a good thing, aiding in the bats' survival…the conclusion suggested some strategy for conservation efforts, such as helping bats fatten up before the cold sets in.~
Or were they fatter bc less comp for resources when they did wake during hibernation? Corr =\= cause

~scientists tried and failed to find a replacement or breed a resistant, palatable hybrid banana. Eventually industry losses began draining millions of dollars a year... It wasn't just United Fruit or just Central and South America; the fungus hit growers in Asia, Africa, Latin America, wherever Gros Michel grew. And the growers were to blame. They just kept planting the same old thing in different places.

The industry's response was to cut virgin forest and create new fields. Some fields were flooded and then replanted with shoots from infected plants. Because flooding suffocated both the disease-causing fungus along with much of the beneficial soil microbiome, the disease came back with a vengeance. Old plantations were left to rot.

~One of Pocasangre's research interests is beneficial microbes and a fungus called Trichoderma to prevent insect pests like nematodes. Some strains of this common soil fungus, along with other amendments like composted banana plants, are a biological treatment for the nematodes that eat roots. Untreated plants lean… because their roots can’t support the tall stalks. The alternative is injection of pesticide gas.