Fun with fungi
Fun With Fungi
(Find translations here)
1. Introduction
This is a Hackuarium Wiki Page on the "Fun With Fungi" project.
We hope to put more discussions and contributions into this Hackuarium Wiki very soon.
2. Key Topics
- What are fungi?
- any of diverse group of spore-producing organisms, which feed on organic matter, including moulds, yeast and mushrooms
- Mycelial Growth (can be on a variety of substrates and in 'in vitro' or liquid cultures)
- DNA-Sequencing of fungi (with first results already)
- How fungi communicate
- Save the bees (with fungi). A follow up of the Hackuarium "BeeMos" and ''OpenFoodRepo DNA'' projects
3. Participatory Research
We hope to do more metagenomic analyses for participatory research on mycelial biodiversity, including the intriguing possibility that mycelia might help save the bees!
Our latest crowdfunding campaign launched on 8Feb23, and we hope it helps us do this seriously, to allow not only extraction of complex samples and MinION kits etc needed for the barcoding, as for our OpenFoodRepo DNA work... but also growth of mycelia on beehive inserts, to provide for bees, to test how they might help bees prosper, as previously published work by other mushroom experts suggests.)
Happily, the campaign reached its budget goal, and our Kickoff Workshop will be held on Earth Day, 22 April 23 from 14-17h!
Here is a French Translation of the main text from the campaign, which a friend shared... =)
This is how we put it in the fb event:
(EN below) Atelier de biomatériaux avec mycéliums.
Nous avons prévu de passer en revue les différentes façons de cultiver les champignons, et les participants vont repartir avec un objet spécial qu'ils ont fabriqué. Biomaterials workshop with mycelia. **
We plan to review different ways to grow mushrooms, and participants will leave with a special object they have created!
Special news:
- We will be expecting Swiss Mycologists 'Wissenschaftliche Kommission' fir DNA preparation and mITS1/4 pcr on 2023.10.03 and 4.
A Swiss beekeeper with problems around another microbe, Ascospaera, that mummifies larval worker bees, causing the serious problem 'couvain calcifié' (in french), will be sending us some samples, and RA did some molbio and got the expected sequence, while and Olivier was thinking about some competition experiments of it and Fomes fomentarius!
See Gallery below.
Further Fun!
Mycelia are also great inspiration for bioart works and biostructural and food ideas to help reduce carbon footprints...
Around this project we have also helped launch a new community biolab, Thyrea Biofablab, with a fungal-themed biofest. Additionally, We have some new results on their growth patterns in petri dishes... Light indeed, as suspected, makes a difference!
You can get involved, too!
Gallery
new plates made from first
mycelia collected
Three mITS1/4 bands cut out for purification and sequencing
Growth on new plates
P is for pupe, B is for black, W is for white...
