It’s a sunny morning, and Sara Landvik is working in the wild parts of Hampstead Heath. She studies the soil, the trees and their roots in search of fungi, because long walks like these are actually part of her job. She regularly goes out in hope of discovering new fungal species hidden deep in the dirt or high among the trees.
“We want to collect as many different species of fungi as possible,” said Landvik, a fungi scientist. The organisms can benefit humankind in the production of food and alcohol, drugs, biofuels, washing detergents and even a famous childhood toy: LEGO. Their nutritional value shouldn’t be overlooked, however. There are about 350 species of edible fungi. They can reduce the chance of diseases such as cancer and heart disease.
There are as many as 3.8 million kinds of fungi worldwide—though only about 144,000 have been discovered, according to this year’s State of the World’s Fungi report. New ones are found by searching forests, collecting soil samples and bringing them back to the lab to be studied, Landvik says.
In the wild, fungi are not able to move, so they compete against other fungi or bacteria for resources. Once fungi reach the laboratory, Landvik says, they are cut into pieces, which are then put into a liquid of nutrients such as minerals and vitamins and a carbon source to help the fungi grow. It’s like a “lottery ticket”, she says, as each discovery could turn up “something that can make a difference in the world, something that we can make a greener industry possible, and so on.” More famous is the discovery of penicillin in 1928, discovered when Alexander Fleming was sorting out his Petri dishes after a holiday and saw a blob of mold had grown.
本时文内容由奇速英语国际教育研究院原创编写，未经书面授权，禁止复制和任何商 业用途，版权所有，侵权必究！（投稿及合作联系：微信：13350077298 QQ：757722345）
13980503458
13980503458
admin@qisuen.cn
