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Pretty much every day, I fantasize about walking

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away from my computer and home office and

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heading out into the wilderness for a better

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life. I mean, I spend more time in

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nature than most folks, but I am still

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very open to moving into the woods, building

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one of those

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in ground shelters that they show being built

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on YouTube and just calling it home.

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Since there are so many pragmatic obstacles with

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this option though, I find that I usually

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just load up with nature hobbies and forest

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and tide pool days.

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Today's episode is funny because by the end

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of it, I am very clearly ready to

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devote myself to becoming a mushroom explorer,

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set up a genetics lab in my home,

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and begin to start discovering and describing mushrooms.

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It will be even more ironic if we

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look back at this episode in a year

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and I'm actually doing that.

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Today's episode is a lot of fun if

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you love mushrooms, especially psychedelic ones. Today's episode

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is equal parts storytelling and cutting edge science.

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Helen is kind and generous, and the episode

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is a lot of fun. You'll hear that

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I clearly had a blast, and I hope

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you do too.

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If you wanna learn more about cannabis health,

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cultivation, and technique efficiently and with good cheer,

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I encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter.

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We'll send you new podcast episodes as they

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come out delivered right to your inbox along

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with commentary on a couple of the most

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important news items from the week and videos

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too. Don't rely on social media to let

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you know when a new episode is published.

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Sign up for the updates to make sure

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you don't miss an episode.

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As the cannabis market continues to compress and

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crumble over much of The United States, there

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are fewer and fewer cannabis and mushroom companies

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that have a budget for marketing.

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If you know of a cannabis or mushroom

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company not run by cops, rats, or chemical

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fertilizers

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who should be an advertiser on shaping fire,

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please let them know and let me know

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too. It is by working together that regenerative

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cultivation

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expands. And we're now offering a smaller entry

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package of commercials, so we're able to include

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folks with smaller budgets. Thanks.

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If you're here for the first time because

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00:02:03,979 --> 00:02:05,599
of the mushroom topic, welcome.

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We do quite a few mushroom episodes here

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at ShapingFire.

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Be sure to check out Shaping Fire episode

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85,

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psilocybin mushrooms and brain chemistry with doctor Meeavy

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Shields.

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Episode 76,

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comparing psilocybin microdosing protocols with guest Adam Bramlage.

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Episode 22, treating brain injury with cannabis and

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mushrooms with guest doctor Ethan Russo.

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Episode 67, also also with doctor Ethan Russo,

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migraine therapy using cannabis and mushrooms.

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Episode 95, psilocybin mushroom analytical testing with guest

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George Selhorn.

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And number 70, cannabis mushrooms and terpenes for

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Optum Health with guests doctor Ethan Russo, Tony

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Vazura, Jeff Chilton, and Burner.

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You are listening to Shaping Fire and I

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am your host, Shango Los. We are in

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our tenth year of Shaping Fire and this

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is episode one twenty eight. My guest today

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is Alan Rockefeller.

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Alan Rockefeller is a mycologist,

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photographer, and one of the most prolific citizen

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scientists working in fungi today. He's spent over

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two decades in the field documenting, collecting, and

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helping identify thousands upon thousands of mushroom species

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globally.

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He's the kind of person who doesn't just

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look at mushrooms, he tracks them across ecosystems,

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photographs them in ways that'll make you fall

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in love with them, and then takes them

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back to his microscope

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and link right down to their DNA.

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Alan has described new species and has coauthored

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scientific work on multiple psilocybin containing mushrooms.

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But what really sets him apart is how

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much of his work is, like, right in

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the open. He's identified hundreds of thousands of

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fungi observations

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online, contributing to platforms like iNaturalist

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and helping everyday people turn curiosity into real

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science.

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He's also a teacher at heart, leading forays,

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teaching microscopy

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and photography, and helping people not not just

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to learn mushrooms, but to see them differently.

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He gets people fired up about mushrooms.

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Allen has appeared in major media including the

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fantastic fungi documentary

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and the first season of Hamilton's Pharmacopoeia

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too. He's been featured in outlets like National

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Geographic and the New York Times and like

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so many other places.

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During the first set, we talk in-depth about

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Psilocybe cupensis as a species complex,

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the split of the Psilocybe genus and modern

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taxonomy,

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and the factors that have led to nearly

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all modern cultivated psychedelic mushrooms actually being the

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same mushroom, just expressing itself in myriad ways.

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In the second set, we talk about evolutionary

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pressures on mushrooms, how new traits evolve, and

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why nearly all the current mushroom identification

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guides are offering information built upon insufficient descriptions.

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And we finish the episode with a discussion

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of wild versus cultivated mushrooms, the importance and

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variety of secondary metabolites in mushrooms,

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wood lovers paralysis,

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mycelium versus fruiting body supplements, and the sheer

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joy that comes from mushroom foraging with ultraviolet

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flashlights.

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All today on Shaping Fire episode one twenty

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eight. Welcome to shaping fire, Alan.

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Thanks for helping me on. Yeah. So glad

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you could make it. I've been watching your

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Instagram the last few weeks, and you have

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been all over the place on the planet

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recently. And I'm glad to have caught you

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back home in the Bay Area.

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Let's, let's get started right into the heart

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of things. You know, most

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everybody, who is at least in my audience,

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has come to mushrooms because of psilocybin mushrooms,

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why we're here today. And, you know, many

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of us find our way to loving mushrooms

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because of our joy found in the hallucinogenic

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aspects, and that was certainly was for me.

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And as I started to learn all about

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the fancy and varied mushroom varieties and, you

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know, seeing what was, you know, going on

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down at the

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in Oakland and seeing the different varieties. I

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was really shocked to find that nearly all

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of the different varieties

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that are being modern cultivated by the people

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I know are all actually

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variety.

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And that's that's shocking because they all express

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themselves in such different ways. How is it

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that the old school like Golden Teachers and

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b positive and the the modern title and

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Penis Envy and then even like the wild

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looking Enigma and others, they're all essentially the

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same genetic mushroom even though they look so

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different. They're all the cubensis.

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Yeah. Cubensis

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is most of what people grow, although there's

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a couple 100 species and people could grow

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almost any of them. But, you know, it's

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kind of like

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how Brassica olyrica

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is broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, and a dozen

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other vegetables.

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So it's just different cultivars of the same

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species.

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And so for people who aren't as experienced

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with understanding how that happens,

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this is mostly through,

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you know, selective breeding, the ones that are

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bred that you like,

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mutations that you take advantage of and and

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and the growing environment and things like that.

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Right? So these are these are intentional things

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that the breeder is doing to push and

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pull the genetics in different ways. Right?

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Yeah. Just like people do with plants, but

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you can also

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do something that's a little bit more like

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saving pollen in your freezer where you cross,

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different strains.

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And so it's pretty easy to take a

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couple of two completely different Cubenza strains,

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get them to mate on agar, and then

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have a new strain. Mhmm.

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People

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try to grow their cultivate their mushrooms in

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an environment

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that,

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is most beneficial to the mushroom because most

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of us, we're just looking for for healthy

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and volume. Right?

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If we were to grow

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mushrooms in a less apt environment and and

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and, you know, and stress them or push

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them this way or another so they express

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different parts

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of their,

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genetics.

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Might we,

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you know, use that using using the ideas

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of nature versus nurture,

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using this idea that we're

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it poorly

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into this different form,

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might we be able to then capture those,

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attributes in a new mushroom, or or does

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growing it in a certain direction

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not really help

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with the, developing,

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which parts of the, genetics are expressed?

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00:08:29,350 --> 00:08:31,910
Yeah. So when different environments, so it'll cause

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it to express different phenotypes, but it won't

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00:08:34,309 --> 00:08:36,730
really change the mushroom at all. It'll just

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look a little bit different. So,

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there are people like Julian Matteucci who's doing

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experiments with gamma radiation, and he found out

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that the mycelium is growing towards the gamma

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radiation source,

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and that'll probably cause mutations

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and do all sorts of crazy things, but,

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that that's pretty rare. In general, people

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just grow them.

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But I've been trying to talk people out

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of growing Psilocybe cubensis,

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because it's kind of boring. It's not really

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native here. It's not super potent, and it

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kinda hurts your stomach, a lot more than

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some of the other species.

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What are the some of the other species

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that you encourage people to look into? I

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00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:23,779
mean, there's hundreds of psilocybe species alone. Right?

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And and and somehow we we landed on

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cubensis. So I guess this is a two

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part question. Do you know why we landed

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on cubensis as the one we wanted to

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work with the most, and what are these

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00:09:34,214 --> 00:09:36,214
other varieties that you encourage people to look

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at?

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00:09:38,615 --> 00:09:39,595
So cubensis

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is super easy to grow. It's really fast.

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00:09:43,254 --> 00:09:44,934
So to grow it is kinda like a

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maybe a two month cycle,

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and it also has, you know, it's very

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heavy, so it has a lot of biomass.

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So if you're growing it for sale,

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it's really hard to make, you know, economic

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sense growing anything other than QBENSUS.

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But if you're growing it,

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just to take them

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or

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for medicine or something like that, I think,

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there's a lot of other better choices, and

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they're not as big and chunky as cubensis,

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and they don't grow quite as fast.

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Mhmm. But you have

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about a 100 different species in Psilocybe,

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and then you have,

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other genera like Paniolus,

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Gymnopilus,

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Plutius,

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Folioti,

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foliotina,

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which is now connocebula,

270
00:10:32,424 --> 00:10:33,065
but there's,

271
00:10:33,384 --> 00:10:36,264
all sorts of different ones that, in theory,

272
00:10:36,264 --> 00:10:37,164
could be grown.

273
00:10:37,865 --> 00:10:39,964
The best ones are typically in painiolus

274
00:10:40,264 --> 00:10:41,164
or psilocybe,

275
00:10:42,070 --> 00:10:45,589
and Paniolis is actually really distantly related to

276
00:10:45,589 --> 00:10:46,889
Psilocybe, so

277
00:10:47,190 --> 00:10:50,070
that is likely to be pretty different. And

278
00:10:50,070 --> 00:10:52,169
then also in Psilocybe itself,

279
00:10:52,709 --> 00:10:53,429
you have

280
00:10:53,884 --> 00:10:55,725
it's kind of split down the genus is

281
00:10:55,725 --> 00:10:57,345
split down the middle genetically,

282
00:10:57,884 --> 00:10:59,804
and we call it clade one and clade

283
00:10:59,804 --> 00:11:02,845
two, and they have completely different psilocybin gene

284
00:11:02,845 --> 00:11:03,345
clusters.

285
00:11:04,125 --> 00:11:06,225
So it's very likely that

286
00:11:06,669 --> 00:11:09,149
something that's, from the other clade is gonna

287
00:11:09,149 --> 00:11:11,230
be much more different than something from the

288
00:11:11,230 --> 00:11:11,970
same clade.

289
00:11:13,149 --> 00:11:15,070
But, you know, there's a lot of different

290
00:11:15,070 --> 00:11:15,570
chemicals

291
00:11:15,950 --> 00:11:18,429
in these mushrooms that cause the effect. You

292
00:11:18,429 --> 00:11:20,545
have, like, a dozen different tryptamines

293
00:11:21,245 --> 00:11:24,125
and, all sorts of beta carbolines and things,

294
00:11:24,125 --> 00:11:26,365
and that is we're just starting to figure

295
00:11:26,365 --> 00:11:28,705
out, you know, what effect did those,

296
00:11:29,165 --> 00:11:30,144
chemicals have.

297
00:11:30,605 --> 00:11:31,980
For people who are

298
00:11:32,379 --> 00:11:35,339
new to researching mushrooms, but they're excited about

299
00:11:35,339 --> 00:11:37,579
it and looking for something, you know, we

300
00:11:37,579 --> 00:11:39,919
mentioned that there are so many,

301
00:11:40,379 --> 00:11:40,879
psilocybe,

302
00:11:41,820 --> 00:11:43,279
varieties to look at.

303
00:11:44,264 --> 00:11:46,825
What are a few that that you think

304
00:11:46,825 --> 00:11:49,165
are engaging and show some promise

305
00:11:49,545 --> 00:11:51,625
for people who kinda want a a leg

306
00:11:51,625 --> 00:11:53,465
up on where they should look instead of

307
00:11:53,465 --> 00:11:55,945
just kinda diving into the big pool of

308
00:11:55,945 --> 00:11:58,230
philosophy generally? Like, you know, if we for

309
00:11:58,230 --> 00:11:59,589
the people who are taking notes and are

310
00:11:59,589 --> 00:12:01,830
like, oh, I'm gonna look at these because

311
00:12:01,830 --> 00:12:03,769
there might be some interesting stuff there.

312
00:12:05,509 --> 00:12:06,389
Yeah. I think,

313
00:12:07,029 --> 00:12:09,529
my favorite one is psilocybe zapiducorum.

314
00:12:10,629 --> 00:12:12,105
And so zapidicorum

315
00:12:12,565 --> 00:12:14,105
is described from Oaxaca,

316
00:12:14,804 --> 00:12:17,225
and this is one of the landslide mushrooms.

317
00:12:17,845 --> 00:12:20,245
And so in Mexico, you find it growing

318
00:12:20,245 --> 00:12:21,705
at the base of landslides.

319
00:12:22,245 --> 00:12:25,225
So kind of a really crazy dramatic habitat,

320
00:12:25,549 --> 00:12:27,230
but they can be huge. They can be

321
00:12:27,230 --> 00:12:29,409
up to a foot tall, and they're extremely

322
00:12:29,470 --> 00:12:29,970
potent,

323
00:12:31,069 --> 00:12:32,529
with about 3%

324
00:12:32,589 --> 00:12:33,089
psilocybin.

325
00:12:33,470 --> 00:12:33,970
So

326
00:12:34,509 --> 00:12:35,730
it is the strongest

327
00:12:36,189 --> 00:12:39,409
wild psilocybin mushroom that has been tested,

328
00:12:40,855 --> 00:12:43,815
and they're also really pretty. The stem is

329
00:12:43,815 --> 00:12:46,714
kinda shaggy, and the blue staining is

330
00:12:47,014 --> 00:12:49,115
very intense cobalt blue.

331
00:12:49,735 --> 00:12:50,714
And so,

332
00:12:51,334 --> 00:12:52,475
these, I think,

333
00:12:52,799 --> 00:12:56,000
are much better for people to cultivate than

334
00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:58,639
Cubensis if they want something that's better to

335
00:12:58,639 --> 00:12:59,600
grow. Mhmm.

336
00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:03,200
And they're not super hard to grow. They're

337
00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:05,440
about a five month cycle instead of a

338
00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:07,279
two month cycle, so they take a little

339
00:13:07,279 --> 00:13:07,779
longer.

340
00:13:08,414 --> 00:13:10,495
And they need a little bit higher humidity.

341
00:13:10,495 --> 00:13:12,414
You know, Cubensis is kind of tolerant of

342
00:13:12,414 --> 00:13:14,495
it drying out a little bit. But other

343
00:13:14,495 --> 00:13:16,575
than that, it's pretty much the the same.

344
00:13:16,575 --> 00:13:18,254
So I've been trying to talk people into

345
00:13:18,254 --> 00:13:20,274
growing something like Psilocybe zapatacorum

346
00:13:21,230 --> 00:13:23,009
or Psilocybes subtropicalis

347
00:13:23,709 --> 00:13:26,209
is another one that's closely related to zapatacorum,

348
00:13:27,309 --> 00:13:29,649
also found in Southeastern Mexico.

349
00:13:30,269 --> 00:13:32,909
And in cultivation, that one's been measured at

350
00:13:32,909 --> 00:13:34,529
up to 5% psilocybin.

351
00:13:34,909 --> 00:13:36,529
So that one is

352
00:13:36,945 --> 00:13:39,205
about as strong as Zapateroam,

353
00:13:39,665 --> 00:13:41,825
and it's smaller. People have been growing it

354
00:13:41,825 --> 00:13:44,644
for for quite a while, and that's probably

355
00:13:44,945 --> 00:13:46,004
about as good,

356
00:13:47,264 --> 00:13:49,345
as far as the experience goes. But, you

357
00:13:49,345 --> 00:13:51,750
know, I noticed that those species don't hurt

358
00:13:51,830 --> 00:13:54,870
my stomach nearly as much as cubensis do,

359
00:13:54,870 --> 00:13:56,730
so a whole lot less nausea

360
00:13:57,190 --> 00:13:59,610
and a much better cleaner experience.

361
00:14:00,149 --> 00:14:01,509
And you have to eat a whole lot

362
00:14:01,509 --> 00:14:04,754
less mushroom for, for a similar effect. Did

363
00:14:04,754 --> 00:14:06,695
you did I hear you say zapotachorum

364
00:14:07,475 --> 00:14:08,855
grows to three feet?

365
00:14:10,274 --> 00:14:12,355
I said one foot. One foot. Alright. Even

366
00:14:12,355 --> 00:14:14,535
one foot, that's a big ass mushroom.

367
00:14:15,875 --> 00:14:18,434
Yeah. Yeah. And they're not always that tall,

368
00:14:18,434 --> 00:14:20,600
but, you know, in cultivation, it's it's not

369
00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:22,759
uncommon to see people with, like, a whole

370
00:14:22,759 --> 00:14:25,019
bunch that are all, like, nine inches long.

371
00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:27,399
Oh. And in the wild, yeah, I've I've

372
00:14:27,399 --> 00:14:30,139
seen them definitely a foot, maybe 14 inches

373
00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:30,700
tall.

374
00:14:31,304 --> 00:14:32,044
Wow. Alright.

375
00:14:32,424 --> 00:14:32,904
So,

376
00:14:33,465 --> 00:14:36,024
so, still kinda hitting on this idea that

377
00:14:36,024 --> 00:14:38,745
we've been using doing Cubensys so so far

378
00:14:38,745 --> 00:14:39,245
because,

379
00:14:39,625 --> 00:14:41,725
I I want to encourage folks to break

380
00:14:41,784 --> 00:14:44,490
break away from Cubensys because so many people

381
00:14:44,629 --> 00:14:46,889
that I talk to, you know, regular enthusiasts,

382
00:14:47,670 --> 00:14:49,670
kind of think that all of these mushrooms

383
00:14:49,670 --> 00:14:51,830
that are that are in the hobby are

384
00:14:51,830 --> 00:14:54,230
are all different, and and it's it's surprising

385
00:14:54,230 --> 00:14:55,850
to find out that they're so similar.

386
00:14:56,485 --> 00:14:59,125
I've heard, a mentor say to me that

387
00:14:59,125 --> 00:15:01,605
that most of the modern strains, that we're

388
00:15:01,605 --> 00:15:04,325
still using can really be, traced back to

389
00:15:04,325 --> 00:15:06,965
a handful of original spore prints that were

390
00:15:06,965 --> 00:15:09,524
circulating during the seventies and eighties. Is that

391
00:15:09,524 --> 00:15:12,070
just lore, or does that sound pretty accurate

392
00:15:12,070 --> 00:15:12,649
to you?

393
00:15:13,590 --> 00:15:16,149
That's probably true, but it's also really easy

394
00:15:16,149 --> 00:15:18,389
just to go out into nature and collect

395
00:15:18,389 --> 00:15:20,230
a a fresh wild one. Mhmm.

396
00:15:20,790 --> 00:15:23,110
But I think it's true that 99%

397
00:15:23,110 --> 00:15:24,090
of what's cultivated,

398
00:15:24,710 --> 00:15:27,205
comes from collections from a long time ago.

399
00:15:27,205 --> 00:15:30,024
Mhmm. Because these kind of have stabilized genetics,

400
00:15:30,164 --> 00:15:32,565
and, you know, they've already been bred for

401
00:15:32,565 --> 00:15:34,825
more potency or a certain look.

402
00:15:35,284 --> 00:15:38,565
And so, yeah, they probably don't really have

403
00:15:38,565 --> 00:15:41,384
very much genetic diversity, but you could certainly

404
00:15:41,709 --> 00:15:42,450
go to

405
00:15:42,909 --> 00:15:45,549
Florida or Eastern Texas and and grab a

406
00:15:45,549 --> 00:15:47,089
wild cubensis and

407
00:15:47,470 --> 00:15:49,309
spore print that and cross it with one

408
00:15:49,309 --> 00:15:52,029
of these modern strains to introduce a bunch

409
00:15:52,029 --> 00:15:53,250
more genetic diversity.

410
00:15:54,024 --> 00:15:56,585
And that sounds really awesome, although people don't

411
00:15:56,585 --> 00:15:57,965
usually do it because

412
00:15:58,825 --> 00:16:01,965
it doesn't really seem to benefit the cultivator

413
00:16:02,105 --> 00:16:04,105
in any way, other than just kinda like

414
00:16:04,105 --> 00:16:06,345
throwing a wild card, giving yourself the chance

415
00:16:06,345 --> 00:16:08,559
of getting a strain that's

416
00:16:09,100 --> 00:16:10,800
significantly different than its parents.

417
00:16:11,179 --> 00:16:13,740
I see. So, there there really isn't any

418
00:16:13,740 --> 00:16:16,779
advantage to freshening up the genetics if they're

419
00:16:16,779 --> 00:16:18,379
just the same. If you if you happen

420
00:16:18,379 --> 00:16:20,320
to hit the lottery and get a variety

421
00:16:20,460 --> 00:16:22,875
that's atypical, well, that's certainly gonna be a

422
00:16:22,875 --> 00:16:24,554
win. But if you're just looking to refresh

423
00:16:24,554 --> 00:16:26,634
the old print, meh. There's not really much

424
00:16:26,634 --> 00:16:27,695
advantage to it.

425
00:16:28,955 --> 00:16:30,975
Not with Psilocybe cubensis.

426
00:16:31,434 --> 00:16:35,115
And, you know, some species go senescent, and

427
00:16:35,115 --> 00:16:36,975
senescence is when the DNA

428
00:16:37,589 --> 00:16:40,949
keeps growing and growing and basically gets tired

429
00:16:40,949 --> 00:16:41,690
and old.

430
00:16:42,149 --> 00:16:42,649
And

431
00:16:43,029 --> 00:16:45,129
that happens with some

432
00:16:45,509 --> 00:16:47,750
species a whole lot more than others, like

433
00:16:47,750 --> 00:16:51,049
with cordyceps militaris, it happens very quickly.

434
00:16:51,464 --> 00:16:54,924
And with oyster mushrooms, it basically never happens.

435
00:16:55,384 --> 00:16:57,384
And cubensis is is a little bit more

436
00:16:57,384 --> 00:16:58,125
like oysters.

437
00:16:58,584 --> 00:17:00,284
You know, it's kinda hard to know

438
00:17:01,144 --> 00:17:03,625
it's kinda hard to measure senescence because there's

439
00:17:03,625 --> 00:17:05,549
so many other variables, but

440
00:17:05,869 --> 00:17:06,769
in in general,

441
00:17:07,230 --> 00:17:08,430
there doesn't seem to be a whole lot

442
00:17:08,430 --> 00:17:11,390
of benefit from going to, to a wild

443
00:17:11,390 --> 00:17:13,490
print and getting, all of these

444
00:17:13,869 --> 00:17:14,369
different,

445
00:17:15,070 --> 00:17:15,570
genotypes,

446
00:17:15,950 --> 00:17:16,769
in the DNA.

447
00:17:17,070 --> 00:17:18,265
This is kind of a stretch of a

448
00:17:18,265 --> 00:17:19,884
question, but I'm gonna go for it anyway.

449
00:17:20,025 --> 00:17:21,164
You're talking about,

450
00:17:21,785 --> 00:17:24,525
this, the the the genetics kind of losing

451
00:17:24,585 --> 00:17:26,505
its its moxie after a while. And we

452
00:17:26,505 --> 00:17:28,105
and we certainly run into this a lot

453
00:17:28,105 --> 00:17:30,345
also in cannabis. Right? When we're making clones

454
00:17:30,345 --> 00:17:31,484
of clones of clones.

455
00:17:31,799 --> 00:17:33,559
You know, the the the plant that we

456
00:17:33,559 --> 00:17:34,940
might be growing now might

457
00:17:35,400 --> 00:17:37,480
while it's acting fresh and young for us,

458
00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:39,740
it might actually be 20 years old itself.

459
00:17:40,759 --> 00:17:42,779
Is is that kind of how what happens

460
00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:43,340
in,

461
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:45,880
in mushrooms too? I've never really thought of

462
00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:48,095
how, like, age and maturity

463
00:17:48,394 --> 00:17:50,015
works in mushrooms. But,

464
00:17:50,634 --> 00:17:53,195
do do they eventually kind of, like, lose

465
00:17:53,195 --> 00:17:53,695
their

466
00:17:54,154 --> 00:17:55,455
inertia as well?

467
00:17:56,634 --> 00:17:59,055
You know, some species much more than others.

468
00:18:00,359 --> 00:18:02,700
And Cubensis doesn't seem to do it much.

469
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:05,660
Another probably good reason why it was,

470
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:07,980
leaned on for for,

471
00:18:09,559 --> 00:18:11,500
universal use and acceptance. Yeah.

472
00:18:12,279 --> 00:18:14,519
Yeah. It doesn't really peter out like some

473
00:18:14,519 --> 00:18:15,625
other ones might.

474
00:18:16,404 --> 00:18:18,725
Mhmm. So as I was getting, prepared to

475
00:18:18,725 --> 00:18:21,045
talk to you, I was learning about cuben

476
00:18:21,125 --> 00:18:22,345
cubensis, and,

477
00:18:22,884 --> 00:18:25,445
I I came across the debate about whether

478
00:18:25,445 --> 00:18:28,644
or not, cubensis is really going to stay

479
00:18:28,644 --> 00:18:31,549
one species or not, or rather if it's

480
00:18:31,549 --> 00:18:34,029
a species complex. And as as I understand

481
00:18:34,029 --> 00:18:36,750
that, that's a that is, a a group

482
00:18:36,750 --> 00:18:37,730
of species

483
00:18:38,109 --> 00:18:38,609
that,

484
00:18:39,549 --> 00:18:41,009
are presently together.

485
00:18:41,470 --> 00:18:43,890
But when they're looked at in more detail,

486
00:18:44,029 --> 00:18:47,065
they'll find important ways that they tease apart.

487
00:18:47,204 --> 00:18:49,285
Do you think that Cubensis is gonna end

488
00:18:49,285 --> 00:18:51,684
up being a species complex and broken apart

489
00:18:51,684 --> 00:18:52,184
eventually?

490
00:18:53,924 --> 00:18:56,424
Yeah. And it it already is a species

491
00:18:56,565 --> 00:19:00,005
complex, and so Cubensis is named after Cuba

492
00:19:00,005 --> 00:19:01,065
where it was discovered,

493
00:19:01,750 --> 00:19:03,849
but it's actually an Asian species,

494
00:19:04,470 --> 00:19:07,130
and so it comes from Asia or Africa.

495
00:19:07,269 --> 00:19:09,109
And if you go over to Asia and

496
00:19:09,109 --> 00:19:12,069
Africa, there's a bunch of species that look

497
00:19:12,069 --> 00:19:14,494
very similar and are closely related, So it's

498
00:19:14,494 --> 00:19:17,855
already a species complex over there. And every

499
00:19:17,855 --> 00:19:18,355
species

500
00:19:18,894 --> 00:19:21,134
on Earth is moving apart just like all

501
00:19:21,134 --> 00:19:23,475
the galaxies in the universe are moving apart.

502
00:19:23,855 --> 00:19:24,355
So,

503
00:19:24,975 --> 00:19:26,195
everything is speciating.

504
00:19:26,735 --> 00:19:27,235
And

505
00:19:27,539 --> 00:19:28,279
in fungi,

506
00:19:28,820 --> 00:19:31,619
no one really knows what a species is.

507
00:19:31,619 --> 00:19:33,000
It's it's pretty amorphous,

508
00:19:33,700 --> 00:19:34,519
and so

509
00:19:34,900 --> 00:19:37,220
that's, kind of an interesting thing, but, you

510
00:19:37,220 --> 00:19:38,680
know, biological organisms

511
00:19:38,980 --> 00:19:41,575
just do that over time. They they never

512
00:19:41,575 --> 00:19:43,974
stay the same. They're always changing and adapting

513
00:19:43,974 --> 00:19:44,634
and mutating,

514
00:19:45,095 --> 00:19:45,994
and so,

515
00:19:46,775 --> 00:19:48,554
the cubensis that we have

516
00:19:48,855 --> 00:19:51,335
is mostly one species, but there's a couple

517
00:19:51,335 --> 00:19:52,875
of them, like natal superstrain

518
00:19:53,255 --> 00:19:54,075
and tranci

519
00:19:54,750 --> 00:19:55,890
are actually Psilocybe

520
00:19:56,190 --> 00:19:59,230
okratio centrata, which is pretty common in South

521
00:19:59,230 --> 00:19:59,730
Africa

522
00:20:00,589 --> 00:20:01,490
and Kenya,

523
00:20:02,430 --> 00:20:03,730
places like that.

524
00:20:04,029 --> 00:20:05,250
And that one,

525
00:20:05,789 --> 00:20:08,430
has only recently been recognized as as its

526
00:20:08,430 --> 00:20:11,055
own species, but if you sequence the DNA,

527
00:20:11,055 --> 00:20:12,835
you can tell it apart pretty easily.

528
00:20:13,214 --> 00:20:15,775
And it has pretty different effects than a

529
00:20:15,775 --> 00:20:18,994
regular cubensis, and almost everybody likes it better.

530
00:20:19,295 --> 00:20:21,775
So, if you wanna grow something a little

531
00:20:21,775 --> 00:20:22,515
bit different,

532
00:20:23,090 --> 00:20:25,170
but don't wanna go go, like, to a

533
00:20:25,170 --> 00:20:27,809
completely different thing, that's a a pretty good

534
00:20:27,809 --> 00:20:28,309
option,

535
00:20:28,849 --> 00:20:31,349
is just get a a natal super strength

536
00:20:31,490 --> 00:20:34,309
or, or Transkei print, and,

537
00:20:35,298 --> 00:20:37,164
every everybody that tries them says that they

538
00:20:37,164 --> 00:20:39,164
they really like the experience of those, and

539
00:20:39,164 --> 00:20:41,724
they're they're pretty strong compared to your standard

540
00:20:41,724 --> 00:20:42,224
cube.

541
00:20:42,845 --> 00:20:44,365
I heard a little bit of hope in

542
00:20:44,365 --> 00:20:46,044
there, and I wanna I wanna pull pull

543
00:20:46,044 --> 00:20:47,325
that out because I think we can should

544
00:20:47,325 --> 00:20:48,684
all use as much of that as we

545
00:20:48,684 --> 00:20:50,859
can today. You you made this great simile

546
00:20:50,859 --> 00:20:51,359
between,

547
00:20:51,980 --> 00:20:52,799
the speciation

548
00:20:53,179 --> 00:20:54,000
of mushrooms,

549
00:20:54,539 --> 00:20:55,839
to be akin to,

550
00:20:56,700 --> 00:20:59,099
the expansion of the universe. And most of

551
00:20:59,099 --> 00:21:01,679
the time, we are focusing on how,

552
00:21:02,299 --> 00:21:05,355
humans on Earth are are, you know, destroying

553
00:21:05,355 --> 00:21:08,335
the environment and limiting species and moving species

554
00:21:08,394 --> 00:21:09,134
more towards,

555
00:21:09,914 --> 00:21:10,414
extinction.

556
00:21:10,795 --> 00:21:12,955
And and and the hope that I think

557
00:21:12,955 --> 00:21:15,035
I hear in here is a suggestion from

558
00:21:15,035 --> 00:21:18,109
you that that that mushrooms might be getting

559
00:21:18,250 --> 00:21:20,589
more numerous and more varied,

560
00:21:21,289 --> 00:21:23,769
as time goes by. Did did I interpret

561
00:21:23,769 --> 00:21:25,369
that correctly? Is that what you're saying? Because

562
00:21:25,369 --> 00:21:26,990
that's that's a cool thing if true.

563
00:21:28,569 --> 00:21:31,174
Yeah. Well, that's that's definitely true. You know,

564
00:21:31,174 --> 00:21:34,535
every every organism on earth is always splitting

565
00:21:34,535 --> 00:21:35,914
in different species,

566
00:21:36,455 --> 00:21:38,455
and it's really hard to say what a

567
00:21:38,455 --> 00:21:40,695
species is because it takes thousands of years

568
00:21:40,695 --> 00:21:42,234
to make a different species.

569
00:21:42,869 --> 00:21:43,369
And,

570
00:21:43,670 --> 00:21:45,509
you know, the mushrooms don't really care what

571
00:21:45,509 --> 00:21:47,990
we call them. They just are kinda doing

572
00:21:47,990 --> 00:21:51,210
their thing, but their thing definitely an involves

573
00:21:51,269 --> 00:21:52,650
getting more diverse.

574
00:21:53,190 --> 00:21:55,109
And, you know, it's not just mushrooms, all

575
00:21:55,109 --> 00:21:57,974
the plants and bacteria. Everything on Earth is

576
00:21:57,974 --> 00:22:01,414
getting more and more diverse as time goes

577
00:22:01,414 --> 00:22:01,914
on.

578
00:22:03,815 --> 00:22:06,055
So I used to be really focused on

579
00:22:06,055 --> 00:22:08,535
freshwater animals and plant species, and I had

580
00:22:08,535 --> 00:22:10,980
35 aquariums. I was really into it. And

581
00:22:11,220 --> 00:22:13,559
it blew my mind when suddenly the taxonomy

582
00:22:13,779 --> 00:22:15,619
for the shrimp that I had been breeding

583
00:22:15,619 --> 00:22:18,119
for sale was changed from Neocaridina

584
00:22:18,500 --> 00:22:19,960
heteropoda to Neocaridina

585
00:22:20,419 --> 00:22:20,919
davidi.

586
00:22:21,220 --> 00:22:22,419
And I was all like, what the hell?

587
00:22:22,419 --> 00:22:23,880
Like, can they do that?

588
00:22:24,194 --> 00:22:26,434
And then and then I realized that this

589
00:22:26,434 --> 00:22:28,454
was this actually happened with

590
00:22:28,755 --> 00:22:31,714
psilocybe too where it got broken up and

591
00:22:31,714 --> 00:22:32,694
half of the mushrooms

592
00:22:33,075 --> 00:22:33,894
got renamed.

593
00:22:34,755 --> 00:22:36,115
For those of us who are not on

594
00:22:36,115 --> 00:22:38,019
the inside of how that played out, would

595
00:22:38,019 --> 00:22:39,700
you just kinda tell us the story of

596
00:22:39,700 --> 00:22:41,140
how that happened? Because I I found it

597
00:22:41,140 --> 00:22:41,880
pretty interesting.

598
00:22:43,539 --> 00:22:46,340
Yeah. So every genus has a type species,

599
00:22:46,340 --> 00:22:49,320
and that type species is the official representative

600
00:22:49,779 --> 00:22:50,920
of that genus.

601
00:22:51,755 --> 00:22:54,394
And so a long time ago, we used

602
00:22:54,394 --> 00:22:56,315
to figure out what was related to each

603
00:22:56,315 --> 00:22:59,034
other just based on what things looked like

604
00:22:59,034 --> 00:23:00,174
and the microscopic

605
00:23:00,474 --> 00:23:00,974
features.

606
00:23:01,514 --> 00:23:02,014
And

607
00:23:02,394 --> 00:23:04,634
within the past twenty five years, all of

608
00:23:04,634 --> 00:23:07,090
a sudden, we've been able to DNA barcode

609
00:23:07,230 --> 00:23:10,590
things. And with this DNA becoming cheap and

610
00:23:10,590 --> 00:23:11,090
accessible,

611
00:23:11,630 --> 00:23:13,390
all of a sudden, we get some real

612
00:23:13,390 --> 00:23:16,110
insight into what's related to what. And it

613
00:23:16,110 --> 00:23:18,494
turns out that we were only right about

614
00:23:18,494 --> 00:23:19,555
half of the time.

615
00:23:19,934 --> 00:23:21,615
And the other half of the time, we

616
00:23:21,615 --> 00:23:24,195
were wrong, and that's due to convergent evolution,

617
00:23:24,815 --> 00:23:27,295
where two things that are not closely related

618
00:23:27,295 --> 00:23:30,195
have similar ecological pressures and end up looking

619
00:23:30,549 --> 00:23:31,049
real

620
00:23:31,589 --> 00:23:33,589
similar, but if you check the DNA, then

621
00:23:33,589 --> 00:23:36,809
you realize, oh, they actually arose from completely

622
00:23:37,029 --> 00:23:38,009
different places,

623
00:23:38,869 --> 00:23:39,369
evolutionarily,

624
00:23:40,150 --> 00:23:42,410
and so that happens all the time,

625
00:23:42,789 --> 00:23:45,049
not just with mushrooms, but with shrimp

626
00:23:45,514 --> 00:23:48,154
and plants and birds and, you know, just

627
00:23:48,154 --> 00:23:49,375
about everything else.

628
00:23:49,755 --> 00:23:50,255
And

629
00:23:51,194 --> 00:23:53,375
so the type species of Psilocybe

630
00:23:54,315 --> 00:23:55,934
was Psilocybe Montana

631
00:23:57,514 --> 00:23:59,914
and has been that way for a very

632
00:23:59,914 --> 00:24:00,815
long time,

633
00:24:02,289 --> 00:24:05,009
you know, over a hundred years. And, you

634
00:24:05,009 --> 00:24:06,150
know, people were happy,

635
00:24:07,170 --> 00:24:09,009
to call them that. And it turns out

636
00:24:09,009 --> 00:24:11,490
that half of the Psilocybes didn't stain blue

637
00:24:11,490 --> 00:24:13,170
and didn't have any effect if you ate

638
00:24:13,170 --> 00:24:15,250
them, and the other half did stain blue

639
00:24:15,250 --> 00:24:17,365
and had effects when you eat them. And

640
00:24:17,365 --> 00:24:20,244
psilocybe montana was in that group that did

641
00:24:20,244 --> 00:24:22,825
not stain blue and didn't have any effect.

642
00:24:23,284 --> 00:24:26,105
So with the DNA barcoding, people realized,

643
00:24:26,565 --> 00:24:27,065
actually,

644
00:24:27,765 --> 00:24:30,565
these ones that don't stain blue are quite

645
00:24:30,565 --> 00:24:32,000
a bit different genetically

646
00:24:32,940 --> 00:24:34,320
from the ones that do,

647
00:24:35,660 --> 00:24:38,220
and if you make a phylogenetic tree, so

648
00:24:38,220 --> 00:24:40,299
that's a tree of life, you can see

649
00:24:40,299 --> 00:24:42,140
that there's a whole bunch of other mushrooms

650
00:24:42,140 --> 00:24:43,759
that are in between them,

651
00:24:44,265 --> 00:24:46,904
and so genera need to be monophyletic, which

652
00:24:46,904 --> 00:24:48,744
means that they all arise from a common

653
00:24:48,744 --> 00:24:49,244
ancestor.

654
00:24:49,625 --> 00:24:52,265
So you can't have a genus that has

655
00:24:52,265 --> 00:24:54,765
a whole bunch of things from different branches

656
00:24:54,825 --> 00:24:56,825
of the tree of life all crammed together

657
00:24:56,825 --> 00:24:57,785
into one genus.

658
00:24:59,429 --> 00:24:59,909
So,

659
00:25:00,389 --> 00:25:03,210
that presented a problem in Psilocybe because,

660
00:25:04,549 --> 00:25:07,589
the type species of Psilocybe was, you know,

661
00:25:07,589 --> 00:25:08,730
Psilocybe Montana,

662
00:25:09,669 --> 00:25:10,169
and

663
00:25:10,549 --> 00:25:13,335
that meant that all of the blueing ones

664
00:25:13,394 --> 00:25:15,174
needed to have a different name

665
00:25:15,634 --> 00:25:16,934
than all of

666
00:25:17,474 --> 00:25:20,835
the non blueing ones. And so the type

667
00:25:20,835 --> 00:25:21,335
species

668
00:25:21,714 --> 00:25:24,054
of Psilocybe was Psilocybe warora,

669
00:25:24,595 --> 00:25:25,335
which is

670
00:25:25,669 --> 00:25:29,130
from New Zealand. And that's that blueing puffball

671
00:25:29,190 --> 00:25:31,210
that you find on tree ferns there.

672
00:25:31,669 --> 00:25:32,169
And,

673
00:25:32,950 --> 00:25:35,289
and then the type species of,

674
00:25:36,230 --> 00:25:39,609
well, you know, type species was Montana. But,

675
00:25:40,924 --> 00:25:41,744
you know, basically,

676
00:25:42,444 --> 00:25:44,784
it looked like what had to have happened

677
00:25:44,924 --> 00:25:47,565
was that all of the psilocybe that were

678
00:25:47,565 --> 00:25:49,265
blueing needed a new name.

679
00:25:49,724 --> 00:25:52,204
And so what they did, and and by

680
00:25:52,204 --> 00:25:54,819
they, it's Gaston Guzman and a few of

681
00:25:54,819 --> 00:25:55,640
his collaborators,

682
00:25:56,019 --> 00:25:57,880
is they submitted a pro proposal

683
00:25:58,579 --> 00:25:59,799
to the International

684
00:26:00,179 --> 00:26:00,679
Nomenclature

685
00:26:01,140 --> 00:26:04,339
Committee, and they proposed that they change the

686
00:26:04,339 --> 00:26:07,240
types pieces of psilocybe to psilocybe samilaniata,

687
00:26:07,779 --> 00:26:08,744
the Liberty Cap.

688
00:26:09,305 --> 00:26:09,964
And then

689
00:26:10,424 --> 00:26:11,224
they used,

690
00:26:11,865 --> 00:26:14,365
the name diconica for all the other ones.

691
00:26:14,505 --> 00:26:16,184
And so that was a good idea, so

692
00:26:16,184 --> 00:26:18,424
we didn't have to rename all of our

693
00:26:18,424 --> 00:26:20,444
psilocybes to a different genus.

694
00:26:21,970 --> 00:26:23,730
You know, that would have been unfortunate since,

695
00:26:23,970 --> 00:26:25,750
they have psilocybin and everything.

696
00:26:27,089 --> 00:26:28,789
So now the Deaconicas

697
00:26:29,089 --> 00:26:30,230
are their own group,

698
00:26:30,609 --> 00:26:33,109
kind of closer to Gallerina, and the psilocybes

699
00:26:33,649 --> 00:26:34,149
are,

700
00:26:35,065 --> 00:26:37,085
retained the psilocybe name. And,

701
00:26:38,265 --> 00:26:40,684
and that kinda added some nomenclatural

702
00:26:40,985 --> 00:26:41,485
stability

703
00:26:41,945 --> 00:26:43,005
to all of this.

704
00:26:44,184 --> 00:26:45,545
But, yeah, it's,

705
00:26:46,025 --> 00:26:48,269
it that was done about 2014,

706
00:26:48,570 --> 00:26:50,330
and, I I think that was a good

707
00:26:50,330 --> 00:26:53,529
idea. It's interesting too that, I was understanding

708
00:26:53,529 --> 00:26:55,390
that the way taxonomy works,

709
00:26:56,170 --> 00:26:57,150
the name actually,

710
00:26:57,609 --> 00:27:00,404
some were arguing you should stay with the

711
00:27:00,404 --> 00:27:00,904
nonpsychoactive

712
00:27:01,684 --> 00:27:03,684
mushrooms. But, of course, it would be it'd

713
00:27:03,684 --> 00:27:06,265
be, you know, bizarre to have the psilocybin

714
00:27:06,404 --> 00:27:08,585
name with the with the letters for psilocybin

715
00:27:08,804 --> 00:27:10,184
in it describing

716
00:27:10,484 --> 00:27:11,544
the non hallucinogenic

717
00:27:12,005 --> 00:27:12,505
mushrooms.

718
00:27:12,820 --> 00:27:14,340
It seemed the way that I read it,

719
00:27:14,340 --> 00:27:16,500
it sounded like they they decided, okay. You

720
00:27:16,500 --> 00:27:18,180
know, we'll let the psilocybe stay with the

721
00:27:18,180 --> 00:27:20,660
hallucinogenic mushrooms just kind of like as an

722
00:27:20,660 --> 00:27:21,160
administrative

723
00:27:21,700 --> 00:27:22,680
decision because

724
00:27:23,059 --> 00:27:25,755
changing all of the, you know, the science

725
00:27:25,755 --> 00:27:26,875
and all the people who are into it,

726
00:27:26,875 --> 00:27:29,215
they they just seemed like a monumental move.

727
00:27:29,355 --> 00:27:30,555
Did I do I have a good read

728
00:27:30,555 --> 00:27:31,994
on that that they just, like, it it

729
00:27:31,994 --> 00:27:33,695
it was a it was a nonscience

730
00:27:34,154 --> 00:27:37,195
more administrative decision because it just made more

731
00:27:37,195 --> 00:27:39,695
sense as far as, like, study usability?

732
00:27:41,570 --> 00:27:43,349
Yeah. That's exactly right.

733
00:27:43,730 --> 00:27:44,630
And so,

734
00:27:45,890 --> 00:27:48,869
this is done through a proposal to conserve

735
00:27:48,930 --> 00:27:49,589
the name,

736
00:27:50,049 --> 00:27:52,130
and I just pulled it up here. It

737
00:27:52,130 --> 00:27:54,210
was published in 2007.

738
00:27:54,210 --> 00:27:55,490
So in 2007,

739
00:27:55,490 --> 00:27:56,825
it was Scott Redhead

740
00:27:57,684 --> 00:27:59,144
and a few other mycologists,

741
00:28:00,565 --> 00:28:03,704
for the Mexican mycologists, Laura Guzman and Gaston

742
00:28:03,765 --> 00:28:04,265
Guzman,

743
00:28:04,884 --> 00:28:07,304
and they all wrote this little proposal.

744
00:28:07,924 --> 00:28:10,700
And so they're basically asking for an exception

745
00:28:10,839 --> 00:28:13,819
to the nomenclature rules, and that was accepted.

746
00:28:14,279 --> 00:28:15,079
And so,

747
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,220
I kinda dodged that bullet back in 2007.

748
00:28:18,519 --> 00:28:20,940
Does the does the mycology community

749
00:28:21,319 --> 00:28:22,279
at that level

750
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:23,339
I mean,

751
00:28:24,315 --> 00:28:27,034
from from being involved with aquariums and cannabis

752
00:28:27,034 --> 00:28:28,634
as much as I have been, I understand

753
00:28:28,634 --> 00:28:31,774
how there can be full full contact drama

754
00:28:31,914 --> 00:28:34,954
at these high levels of science. But did

755
00:28:34,954 --> 00:28:37,534
did a move like this happen relatively undramatically,

756
00:28:37,994 --> 00:28:40,769
or was it messy at the time and

757
00:28:40,769 --> 00:28:43,090
it's easier to look back at it than

758
00:28:43,090 --> 00:28:44,470
than to have lived through it?

759
00:28:45,650 --> 00:28:47,590
I think everyone was just relieved

760
00:28:48,210 --> 00:28:51,009
that it was accepted and that we didn't

761
00:28:51,009 --> 00:28:51,750
have to,

762
00:28:52,450 --> 00:28:53,990
make all those name changes.

763
00:28:55,515 --> 00:28:57,134
But, you know, the mycologists

764
00:28:57,434 --> 00:28:59,914
generally get along pretty well. You don't have

765
00:28:59,914 --> 00:29:02,555
a whole lot of drama. And one reason

766
00:29:02,555 --> 00:29:04,735
for that is that there's really no mushroom

767
00:29:04,955 --> 00:29:06,575
there's no money in mushrooms.

768
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:09,279
And so with something like the cannabis world

769
00:29:09,279 --> 00:29:11,140
where there's a whole lot of money involved,

770
00:29:11,359 --> 00:29:11,940
it causes

771
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:13,700
all sorts of drama,

772
00:29:14,319 --> 00:29:16,740
but with mushrooms it's kind of the opposite

773
00:29:16,799 --> 00:29:19,440
where there's really there's almost no money in

774
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:19,815
it,

775
00:29:20,294 --> 00:29:22,134
kind of a mixed blessing because it keeps

776
00:29:22,134 --> 00:29:23,894
all the people that just care about money

777
00:29:23,894 --> 00:29:25,914
away. So the only people that study mushrooms

778
00:29:25,974 --> 00:29:27,914
are people that actually care about them,

779
00:29:28,534 --> 00:29:31,274
and you don't have disputes over money,

780
00:29:31,894 --> 00:29:33,734
but it also means there's really no money

781
00:29:33,734 --> 00:29:36,549
for research. So there's tons of new species

782
00:29:36,549 --> 00:29:39,690
of mushrooms that gets get discovered every day,

783
00:29:40,149 --> 00:29:40,649
and

784
00:29:41,029 --> 00:29:43,049
very few people are actually

785
00:29:43,509 --> 00:29:45,750
publishing them and and writing up the new

786
00:29:45,750 --> 00:29:46,250
species.

787
00:29:46,869 --> 00:29:50,034
It's amazing how in just common conversation with

788
00:29:50,034 --> 00:29:52,694
people about mushrooms, how many people think that,

789
00:29:52,755 --> 00:29:54,914
you know, the mushrooms that are to be

790
00:29:54,914 --> 00:29:55,414
discovered

791
00:29:55,875 --> 00:29:57,015
have been discovered.

792
00:29:57,634 --> 00:30:00,294
And if there is any kind of discovery,

793
00:30:00,355 --> 00:30:02,660
you're gonna need to go to some super

794
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:03,779
exotic place,

795
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:05,460
you know,

796
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:08,880
at the Epic Equator or something. But the

797
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:11,600
more I have listened to you, there are

798
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:12,420
new mushrooms

799
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:14,799
everywhere, and I think it'd be really helpful

800
00:30:14,799 --> 00:30:16,900
to people un to understand that more.

801
00:30:18,315 --> 00:30:20,554
Yeah. There really are. In fact, if you

802
00:30:20,554 --> 00:30:22,894
go out just hiking in in the woods,

803
00:30:23,355 --> 00:30:25,755
anywhere in The United States and if it's

804
00:30:25,755 --> 00:30:28,315
been raining really well and the season's good,

805
00:30:28,315 --> 00:30:29,134
you'll discover

806
00:30:29,835 --> 00:30:32,174
50 to a 100 new species

807
00:30:32,554 --> 00:30:33,375
per day.

808
00:30:34,210 --> 00:30:37,250
And they're new and that they're unknown to

809
00:30:37,250 --> 00:30:40,289
science, so there's no scientific name for them.

810
00:30:40,289 --> 00:30:42,070
They haven't been formally described,

811
00:30:42,450 --> 00:30:44,450
but we see them all the time, and

812
00:30:44,450 --> 00:30:46,370
some of them are extremely common. Some of

813
00:30:46,370 --> 00:30:48,930
the most common edibles in grocery stores, some

814
00:30:48,930 --> 00:30:50,955
of the most common mushrooms that you might

815
00:30:50,955 --> 00:30:52,815
see a thousand times a day,

816
00:30:53,355 --> 00:30:55,455
even those don't have names yet.

817
00:30:56,555 --> 00:30:58,335
So that's a that's a really

818
00:30:59,355 --> 00:30:59,855
incredible,

819
00:31:00,154 --> 00:31:02,130
you know, claim to that there's so many

820
00:31:02,130 --> 00:31:03,650
even, you know, even where I live in

821
00:31:03,650 --> 00:31:05,330
the Pacific Northwest, you know, we had we

822
00:31:05,330 --> 00:31:06,609
do have a lot of mushrooms here, but

823
00:31:06,609 --> 00:31:08,690
still, that I could go out and find

824
00:31:08,690 --> 00:31:10,710
so many just just walking.

825
00:31:11,170 --> 00:31:13,109
Do you think that they are,

826
00:31:13,730 --> 00:31:14,470
they are

827
00:31:16,315 --> 00:31:19,674
undescribed and unknown to science simply because of

828
00:31:19,674 --> 00:31:21,674
what we were saying earlier that there's not

829
00:31:21,674 --> 00:31:23,674
really money in it to for people to

830
00:31:23,674 --> 00:31:25,934
go out and spend their time that way?

831
00:31:26,795 --> 00:31:29,519
Yeah. That that's exactly it. And it's not

832
00:31:29,519 --> 00:31:31,360
like they're unknown. I mean, if you get

833
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:33,220
a field guide to the Pacific Northwest,

834
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,080
every mushroom will be in there, and they'll

835
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:38,400
all have names attached to them. They just

836
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,019
won't be the right names.

837
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,974
So there's two ways we deal with that.

838
00:31:43,054 --> 00:31:45,234
One way is that we misapply names,

839
00:31:45,694 --> 00:31:48,174
and so we will borrow a name from

840
00:31:48,174 --> 00:31:48,674
Europe

841
00:31:49,054 --> 00:31:51,454
and apply it to our mushroom even though

842
00:31:51,454 --> 00:31:53,294
we know it's different because we don't have

843
00:31:53,294 --> 00:31:53,875
a name.

844
00:31:54,335 --> 00:31:56,974
And that's extremely common. If you just flip

845
00:31:56,974 --> 00:31:59,109
through a field guide, probably half of the

846
00:31:59,109 --> 00:32:02,470
names in there are misapplied European names, and

847
00:32:02,470 --> 00:32:04,230
the other way we deal with that is

848
00:32:04,230 --> 00:32:07,910
adding temporary names. So whenever I sequence the

849
00:32:07,910 --> 00:32:09,990
DNA of a mushroom, when it doesn't come

850
00:32:09,990 --> 00:32:11,274
back as

851
00:32:11,654 --> 00:32:14,154
something that is described that has a name,

852
00:32:15,015 --> 00:32:17,815
I will assign it a temporary name, and

853
00:32:17,815 --> 00:32:21,115
that name gets used on citizen science websites

854
00:32:21,174 --> 00:32:21,994
like iNaturalist

855
00:32:22,375 --> 00:32:23,674
and Mushroom Observer,

856
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:27,319
and even written about in scientific papers. That

857
00:32:27,319 --> 00:32:29,819
way, at least we have something to call

858
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:32,519
all of the names, and these names might

859
00:32:32,519 --> 00:32:33,819
be something like,

860
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:35,500
Enteloma

861
00:32:35,799 --> 00:32:37,019
species California

862
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:38,299
82,

863
00:32:38,724 --> 00:32:41,444
and that's because we have eighty eighty two

864
00:32:41,444 --> 00:32:44,404
species of entilloma that we have sequenced in

865
00:32:44,404 --> 00:32:47,784
California that we don't have names for. And

866
00:32:47,845 --> 00:32:49,704
most of those are probably

867
00:32:50,085 --> 00:32:51,304
unknown to science.

868
00:32:51,710 --> 00:32:54,029
So that is a whole lifetime's worth of

869
00:32:54,029 --> 00:32:56,210
work right there for somebody.

870
00:32:57,230 --> 00:32:57,730
But

871
00:32:58,029 --> 00:32:59,009
you can also,

872
00:32:59,710 --> 00:33:01,309
apply a provisional name.

873
00:33:01,869 --> 00:33:04,369
For example, you have Psilocybe gendalciana,

874
00:33:05,404 --> 00:33:07,664
and that is an unpublished name.

875
00:33:08,204 --> 00:33:10,944
And it's gonna be published in the future,

876
00:33:11,005 --> 00:33:12,304
but for now,

877
00:33:12,845 --> 00:33:15,345
it's just it's just a temporary name.

878
00:33:15,644 --> 00:33:17,164
But at least when we see it, we

879
00:33:17,164 --> 00:33:18,865
can communicate to other people,

880
00:33:19,490 --> 00:33:21,890
about what it is that we found, and

881
00:33:21,890 --> 00:33:24,549
it's really important to have names for mushrooms

882
00:33:24,690 --> 00:33:25,590
for two reasons.

883
00:33:26,049 --> 00:33:28,769
One of them is so we can talk

884
00:33:28,769 --> 00:33:30,690
about what we found, and when you're doing

885
00:33:30,690 --> 00:33:31,190
research

886
00:33:31,650 --> 00:33:33,650
on a mushroom, so you're gonna do a

887
00:33:33,650 --> 00:33:34,630
chemical analysis,

888
00:33:34,984 --> 00:33:37,565
you have to be able to communicate exactly

889
00:33:38,025 --> 00:33:39,724
which mushroom you analyzed.

890
00:33:40,265 --> 00:33:41,705
And so if you read any of the

891
00:33:41,705 --> 00:33:44,205
older papers on the chemistry of fungi,

892
00:33:44,744 --> 00:33:46,845
they'll be using the wrong name.

893
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,400
And so they'll say that they tested one

894
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:51,799
mushroom, but they actually tested a different mushroom,

895
00:33:51,799 --> 00:33:54,380
and they these will be different chemically.

896
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:56,779
The other reason it's important to name fungi

897
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:57,820
is for conservation

898
00:33:58,359 --> 00:34:00,680
because if something is very rare, you have

899
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:02,105
to have a a name for it. So

900
00:34:02,105 --> 00:34:03,545
you can say, oh, we have to save

901
00:34:03,545 --> 00:34:04,845
this really rare thing.

902
00:34:05,384 --> 00:34:07,065
It doesn't really work to be like, oh,

903
00:34:07,065 --> 00:34:09,164
we gotta save all of these unnamed

904
00:34:09,784 --> 00:34:10,284
things.

905
00:34:10,905 --> 00:34:12,744
But if you publish if you find a

906
00:34:12,744 --> 00:34:15,385
mushroom, you sequence the DNA, and it does

907
00:34:15,385 --> 00:34:17,800
not match anything in GenBank or any of

908
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:18,760
the other DNA data

909
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:20,219
databases,

910
00:34:20,599 --> 00:34:22,380
then you can say, oh, this mushroom

911
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:24,139
only occurs

912
00:34:24,679 --> 00:34:26,539
in this one little forest.

913
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,494
And, you know, maybe it actually occurs other

914
00:34:29,494 --> 00:34:31,735
places, but if it's only known from one

915
00:34:31,735 --> 00:34:33,974
place, then you can say, well, it probably

916
00:34:33,974 --> 00:34:36,075
shouldn't cut down this forest because

917
00:34:36,454 --> 00:34:38,295
maybe it goes extinct if you cut it

918
00:34:38,295 --> 00:34:40,855
down. Maybe this there's something special about this

919
00:34:40,855 --> 00:34:42,235
tract of land here.

920
00:34:42,909 --> 00:34:45,390
But there are so many unnamed mushrooms that

921
00:34:45,390 --> 00:34:48,190
you could literally go into any forest anywhere

922
00:34:48,190 --> 00:34:48,929
in the world,

923
00:34:49,390 --> 00:34:52,130
collect a whole bunch of fungi, and find

924
00:34:52,190 --> 00:34:53,890
novel DNA barcodes

925
00:34:54,670 --> 00:34:55,070
there.

926
00:34:55,869 --> 00:34:56,369
And

927
00:34:56,934 --> 00:34:59,034
that that's kind of a cool thing,

928
00:34:59,894 --> 00:35:01,974
you know, about fungi and just,

929
00:35:02,534 --> 00:35:05,335
we're just starting to to learn about all

930
00:35:05,335 --> 00:35:07,974
of them. But really, just a very small

931
00:35:07,974 --> 00:35:10,394
percentage of the fungi are named,

932
00:35:10,839 --> 00:35:11,739
probably between

933
00:35:12,039 --> 00:35:13,420
110%

934
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:15,500
of the fungi out there are named,

935
00:35:16,199 --> 00:35:17,719
and the rest of them,

936
00:35:18,039 --> 00:35:20,039
do not have names. And so it's more

937
00:35:20,039 --> 00:35:22,139
likely to have a name if it's big

938
00:35:22,359 --> 00:35:24,760
or if it's psychoactive or there's some reason

939
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:26,655
for people to pay attention to it. You

940
00:35:26,655 --> 00:35:28,414
know, most of the fungi in the world

941
00:35:28,414 --> 00:35:29,394
don't make mushrooms,

942
00:35:30,574 --> 00:35:31,474
and most of,

943
00:35:31,934 --> 00:35:33,635
but even most of the mushrooms,

944
00:35:34,655 --> 00:35:36,434
still remain unnamed.

945
00:35:36,974 --> 00:35:39,454
That's so that's startling. Everything you just said

946
00:35:39,454 --> 00:35:41,699
there is very startling. The fact that so

947
00:35:41,699 --> 00:35:44,519
few of them have been described properly

948
00:35:45,139 --> 00:35:47,059
and and that you know, it's inspiring too

949
00:35:47,059 --> 00:35:49,380
that there's that there's so much, you know,

950
00:35:49,380 --> 00:35:52,260
exploring left to do. I I've got a

951
00:35:52,260 --> 00:35:54,099
hit on that part, though, that so many

952
00:35:54,099 --> 00:35:54,760
of them

953
00:35:55,085 --> 00:35:57,964
are are misnamed and that European names have

954
00:35:57,964 --> 00:36:00,525
been brought over and misapplied and so many

955
00:36:00,525 --> 00:36:02,224
of the guidebooks are,

956
00:36:02,525 --> 00:36:05,025
you know, somewhere between vague and wrong.

957
00:36:06,364 --> 00:36:08,364
When they when when they're when they're in

958
00:36:08,364 --> 00:36:08,944
the book

959
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,200
and it's all put made to look so

960
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:14,019
orderly, it it it feels like science.

961
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:16,079
But to but to find out that many

962
00:36:16,079 --> 00:36:18,420
of them are misnamed is is,

963
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:19,700
surprising.

964
00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:24,820
What do you recommend for people who

965
00:36:25,414 --> 00:36:28,315
want to make sure that they are learning

966
00:36:28,775 --> 00:36:29,275
accurate

967
00:36:29,894 --> 00:36:30,394
taxonomy

968
00:36:31,014 --> 00:36:33,114
and and I guess to some degree nomenclature

969
00:36:33,494 --> 00:36:36,054
for these mushrooms? Is there a, do you

970
00:36:36,215 --> 00:36:39,500
does everybody kinda have to start with the

971
00:36:39,739 --> 00:36:41,900
these early books that have got so many

972
00:36:41,900 --> 00:36:42,400
inaccuracies

973
00:36:42,699 --> 00:36:45,420
and then over time, they weed them out?

974
00:36:45,420 --> 00:36:47,420
Or or do you recommend for people getting

975
00:36:47,420 --> 00:36:50,400
into mushrooms to, like, skip that whole consumer

976
00:36:50,539 --> 00:36:51,519
layer of books

977
00:36:51,820 --> 00:36:52,960
because of the inaccuracies

978
00:36:53,420 --> 00:36:54,275
and start

979
00:36:54,574 --> 00:36:57,795
somewhere else with a more scientific based book?

980
00:37:00,094 --> 00:37:02,494
Well, there really are no books that have

981
00:37:02,494 --> 00:37:04,894
all of the updated names because as soon

982
00:37:04,894 --> 00:37:06,734
as you publish a book, you know, it's

983
00:37:06,734 --> 00:37:08,514
a snapshot in time, and

984
00:37:09,019 --> 00:37:10,559
the the names keep changing,

985
00:37:11,260 --> 00:37:13,519
and as our understanding keeps evolving.

986
00:37:14,059 --> 00:37:15,980
But there's certainly a newer book is is

987
00:37:15,980 --> 00:37:18,619
gonna have less of a learning curve, you

988
00:37:18,619 --> 00:37:20,380
know, when you try to use the the

989
00:37:20,380 --> 00:37:22,940
newest best name, as opposed to an older

990
00:37:22,940 --> 00:37:25,204
name, but older books still work fine.

991
00:37:25,985 --> 00:37:29,345
Also, old names or misapplied names, the wrong

992
00:37:29,345 --> 00:37:32,085
name is still way better than no name.

993
00:37:32,545 --> 00:37:35,105
If somebody uses a name from a hundred

994
00:37:35,105 --> 00:37:37,105
years ago, I'll still know what they're talking

995
00:37:37,105 --> 00:37:37,605
about.

996
00:37:38,730 --> 00:37:40,650
It's just that maybe we have a a

997
00:37:40,650 --> 00:37:43,710
better name now that more accurately reflects,

998
00:37:44,250 --> 00:37:46,349
its its true genetic relationship.

999
00:37:46,889 --> 00:37:48,250
And I guess you might have a name

1000
00:37:48,250 --> 00:37:50,409
from a 100 years ago that that that

1001
00:37:50,409 --> 00:37:51,610
might not be the right name. We were

1002
00:37:51,769 --> 00:37:53,289
but at least you know what that name

1003
00:37:53,530 --> 00:37:54,885
the four of them that that name was

1004
00:37:54,885 --> 00:37:56,565
broken into. And so you go, alright. I'm

1005
00:37:56,565 --> 00:37:58,025
gonna go look at these four.

1006
00:37:59,525 --> 00:38:02,244
Yeah. Exactly. Mhmm. And, you know, long time

1007
00:38:02,244 --> 00:38:05,144
ago, almost every gilled mushroom was in Agaricus.

1008
00:38:05,605 --> 00:38:07,065
So Amanita muscaria

1009
00:38:07,364 --> 00:38:08,585
was named Agaricus

1010
00:38:09,045 --> 00:38:09,545
muscarias,

1011
00:38:10,530 --> 00:38:13,890
and old scientific names are still valid. So

1012
00:38:13,890 --> 00:38:15,989
you can still call it, you know, Agaricus

1013
00:38:16,369 --> 00:38:16,869
muscariac,

1014
00:38:17,570 --> 00:38:19,269
Muscaricus, and that's not

1015
00:38:19,570 --> 00:38:22,369
wrong. It's just that we have, a more

1016
00:38:22,369 --> 00:38:25,244
updated name now that that more people know.

1017
00:38:25,485 --> 00:38:28,125
Right on. Alright. So, we're gonna take a

1018
00:38:28,125 --> 00:38:29,724
short break and be right back. And when

1019
00:38:29,724 --> 00:38:31,405
we come back, we're gonna start, with a

1020
00:38:31,405 --> 00:38:33,805
conversation about the the kinds of pressure that

1021
00:38:33,805 --> 00:38:35,744
you need for mushrooms to evolve.

1022
00:38:36,445 --> 00:38:38,525
You are listening to Shaping Fire, and my

1023
00:38:38,525 --> 00:38:40,239
guest today is mycologist,

1024
00:38:40,539 --> 00:38:42,960
Alan Rockefeller. And, you know, without these advertisers,

1025
00:38:43,099 --> 00:38:45,500
Shaping Fire would not happen. So please support

1026
00:38:45,500 --> 00:38:47,179
them and let you know that you heard

1027
00:38:47,179 --> 00:38:48,559
them on Shaping Fire.

1028
00:38:51,035 --> 00:38:54,155
The new finely screened living compost from Leighton

1029
00:38:54,155 --> 00:38:56,974
Morrison at Kingdom Aquaponics is in a product

1030
00:38:57,035 --> 00:38:58,655
category all by itself.

1031
00:38:59,434 --> 00:39:01,934
Nearly all compost you can buy is thermophilic,

1032
00:39:02,394 --> 00:39:04,655
meaning that the compost pile has been heated

1033
00:39:04,715 --> 00:39:06,655
in order to destroy all the pathogens.

1034
00:39:07,569 --> 00:39:10,550
This composting process leaves you with only thermophilic

1035
00:39:10,929 --> 00:39:13,109
organisms while killing everything else.

1036
00:39:13,889 --> 00:39:17,089
Living compost from Kingdom Aquaponics is never heated

1037
00:39:17,089 --> 00:39:18,449
above a 115

1038
00:39:18,449 --> 00:39:21,505
degrees, So it still thrives with the phosphate

1039
00:39:21,565 --> 00:39:22,224
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1040
00:39:22,525 --> 00:39:23,025
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1041
00:39:23,804 --> 00:39:26,764
degraders, and decomposers along with the more advanced

1042
00:39:26,764 --> 00:39:28,144
nutrient cycling organisms.

1043
00:39:28,924 --> 00:39:31,324
But you might be thinking, Shango, if the

1044
00:39:31,324 --> 00:39:31,650
compost

1045
00:39:32,849 --> 00:39:34,130
compost is never heated, isn't it filled with

1046
00:39:34,130 --> 00:39:35,589
pathogens that might hurt my garden?

1047
00:39:36,449 --> 00:39:38,309
All of Layton's compost components

1048
00:39:38,609 --> 00:39:41,650
are specifically chosen and pre processed to remove

1049
00:39:41,650 --> 00:39:42,150
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1050
00:39:42,449 --> 00:39:44,150
before the cool mesophilic

1051
00:39:44,449 --> 00:39:45,589
composting process.

1052
00:39:46,224 --> 00:39:48,784
The mushroom substrate he uses is sterilized in

1053
00:39:48,784 --> 00:39:50,085
advance for growing mushrooms.

1054
00:39:50,464 --> 00:39:52,784
The wood fines are from shredded kiln dried

1055
00:39:52,784 --> 00:39:55,525
lumber and that kiln heat removes any pathogens.

1056
00:39:55,905 --> 00:39:58,464
And the repurposed coco coir is sterilized with

1057
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heat in advance too.

1058
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These materials are then combined with a mix

1059
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1060
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1061
00:40:10,159 --> 00:40:12,820
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1062
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1063
00:40:15,585 --> 00:40:18,565
is packed with nutrient cycling protozoa and nematodes,

1064
00:40:18,945 --> 00:40:21,985
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1065
00:40:21,985 --> 00:40:22,885
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1066
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1067
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1068
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1070
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1073
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1076
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1077
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1078
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1079
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1080
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1081
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1082
00:41:11,835 --> 00:41:13,994
Caleb Inspecta and his family have lived in

1083
00:41:13,994 --> 00:41:16,394
Humboldt County for over a hundred years. For

1084
00:41:16,394 --> 00:41:18,875
the last forty years, three generations of his

1085
00:41:18,875 --> 00:41:20,574
family have cultivated extraordinary

1086
00:41:20,954 --> 00:41:23,515
sense of mia cannabis in Humboldt, Mendocino, and

1087
00:41:23,515 --> 00:41:24,574
Trinity Counties.

1088
00:41:25,269 --> 00:41:27,589
Because of his lineage and the hard earned

1089
00:41:27,589 --> 00:41:30,389
experience that comes from growing up smoking and

1090
00:41:30,389 --> 00:41:33,109
sifting large populations of cannabis plants in Northern

1091
00:41:33,109 --> 00:41:33,609
California,

1092
00:41:34,069 --> 00:41:36,309
the seeds you'll cop from CSI will be

1093
00:41:36,309 --> 00:41:37,210
winning genetics

1094
00:41:37,535 --> 00:41:40,275
based on long time heavy hitters and updated

1095
00:41:40,335 --> 00:41:42,494
and resifted to bring out new and exotic

1096
00:41:42,494 --> 00:41:43,875
traits and better yields.

1097
00:41:44,335 --> 00:41:46,815
Go ahead and ask around. Caleb, also known

1098
00:41:46,815 --> 00:41:49,454
as Inspecta and Pirates of the Emerald Triangle

1099
00:41:49,454 --> 00:41:52,119
is a breeder's breeder. He reaches way back

1100
00:41:52,119 --> 00:41:53,900
and works with significant strains,

1101
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:56,599
recreating them in new and interesting ways that

1102
00:41:56,599 --> 00:41:58,860
you'll love as a toker and a grower

1103
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,159
as well as offering you some surprises that

1104
00:42:01,159 --> 00:42:03,579
will delight serious seed traders and cultivators.

1105
00:42:04,585 --> 00:42:07,644
Humboldt CSI goes a further step and selfs

1106
00:42:07,704 --> 00:42:10,025
all these chemovars so you know all the

1107
00:42:10,025 --> 00:42:11,164
seeds will be female.

1108
00:42:11,465 --> 00:42:14,125
These are not experimental feminized seeds.

1109
00:42:14,425 --> 00:42:17,144
Humboldt CSI releases some of the best female

1110
00:42:17,144 --> 00:42:19,640
seeds available anywhere and it will show in

1111
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:20,300
your garden.

1112
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:23,079
Folks grew quite a bit of CSI Humboldt

1113
00:42:23,079 --> 00:42:25,160
Gen X last year here on Vashon Island

1114
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:28,220
and everyone was pleased. The patients had beautiful

1115
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:30,599
female plants and didn't have to cull half

1116
00:42:30,599 --> 00:42:31,980
of their garden as males.

1117
00:42:32,324 --> 00:42:34,324
The folks growing for the fun of getting

1118
00:42:34,324 --> 00:42:37,605
high grew colorful flowers with exceptional bag appeal

1119
00:42:37,605 --> 00:42:40,644
and grade highs. And breeders had seven out

1120
00:42:40,644 --> 00:42:42,644
of seven females in a pack which gave

1121
00:42:42,644 --> 00:42:44,505
them a lot of phenotypic choices.

1122
00:42:45,289 --> 00:42:49,690
Take a moment right now and visit humboldtcsi.com.

1123
00:42:49,690 --> 00:42:51,449
You'll find an up to date menu of

1124
00:42:51,449 --> 00:42:54,409
both feminized and regular lines along with photos

1125
00:42:54,409 --> 00:42:55,070
and descriptions.

1126
00:42:55,530 --> 00:42:58,750
That's humboldtcsi.com.

1127
00:43:01,585 --> 00:43:04,385
Businesses everywhere are striving to reach people through

1128
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1129
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1130
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1131
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1133
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1136
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1138
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1140
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1141
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1143
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1144
00:43:48,130 --> 00:43:49,510
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1145
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1146
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1151
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now and will continue to reach new listeners

1154
00:44:10,304 --> 00:44:12,769
as they explore the Shaping Fire back catalog

1155
00:44:12,769 --> 00:44:13,510
of episodes

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00:44:13,890 --> 00:44:15,590
again and again for years.

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And we won't work against you while taking

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a printed postcard per person, and the Shaping

1161
00:44:25,010 --> 00:44:27,964
Fire audience is full of smart cannabis enthusiasts,

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00:44:28,505 --> 00:44:31,144
cultivators, and entrepreneurs who are always curious to

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learn. Do yourself a solid and contact us

1164
00:44:33,625 --> 00:44:35,964
today for rates on podcast advertising.

1165
00:44:36,664 --> 00:44:39,464
Email hotspot@shapingfire.com

1166
00:44:39,464 --> 00:44:40,605
to find out more.

1167
00:44:41,219 --> 00:44:43,380
Welcome back you are listening to shaping fire

1168
00:44:43,380 --> 00:44:45,460
I am your host shango Los and my

1169
00:44:45,460 --> 00:44:46,840
guest today is mycologist

1170
00:44:47,380 --> 00:44:48,280
Alan Rockefeller

1171
00:44:48,820 --> 00:44:51,000
so before the break we were talking about

1172
00:44:52,099 --> 00:44:54,440
how many different varieties there are still

1173
00:44:54,980 --> 00:44:57,454
for us to to describe and all the

1174
00:44:57,454 --> 00:44:58,675
room there is for,

1175
00:44:59,135 --> 00:45:01,795
folks to explore in the mushroom world. And,

1176
00:45:02,215 --> 00:45:03,695
you know, Alan, we

1177
00:45:04,255 --> 00:45:06,035
these mushrooms, they continually

1178
00:45:06,575 --> 00:45:08,675
change because of pressure

1179
00:45:09,219 --> 00:45:12,039
from the environment, whether it be, you know,

1180
00:45:12,340 --> 00:45:14,599
weather or nutrition or even humans.

1181
00:45:15,940 --> 00:45:17,960
Will you tell us a little bit about

1182
00:45:18,019 --> 00:45:18,500
about,

1183
00:45:18,820 --> 00:45:19,719
the arc

1184
00:45:20,099 --> 00:45:22,704
of of change? Like, you mentioned earlier that

1185
00:45:22,704 --> 00:45:24,945
this happens for a long over a long

1186
00:45:24,945 --> 00:45:26,945
period of time because they don't work on

1187
00:45:26,945 --> 00:45:28,405
the same clock as humans.

1188
00:45:28,945 --> 00:45:31,364
But also over that kind of time,

1189
00:45:32,545 --> 00:45:33,364
the pressures

1190
00:45:33,824 --> 00:45:35,824
are different than the ones that we as

1191
00:45:35,824 --> 00:45:37,045
humans experience.

1192
00:45:37,569 --> 00:45:39,089
So do we will you illustrate that with

1193
00:45:39,089 --> 00:45:40,609
us for, like, you know, a story or

1194
00:45:40,609 --> 00:45:43,750
two about about what you've seen influence,

1195
00:45:44,690 --> 00:45:45,589
mushroom evolution?

1196
00:45:48,130 --> 00:45:50,210
Yeah. So that's one of the cool things

1197
00:45:50,210 --> 00:45:51,909
about mushrooms is that the evolutionary

1198
00:45:52,289 --> 00:45:54,765
pressures are so different than they are

1199
00:45:55,144 --> 00:45:56,844
with plants or animals,

1200
00:45:57,385 --> 00:45:59,625
and so that makes plants and animals very

1201
00:45:59,625 --> 00:46:01,864
easy to understand because they all you know,

1202
00:46:01,864 --> 00:46:03,164
the plants have their pollinators,

1203
00:46:03,465 --> 00:46:06,445
the animals have their predators. But with mushrooms,

1204
00:46:06,664 --> 00:46:07,405
the evolutionary

1205
00:46:07,704 --> 00:46:10,730
pressures are mostly things that we don't know

1206
00:46:10,730 --> 00:46:13,530
anything about and that we can really just

1207
00:46:13,530 --> 00:46:14,670
not even comprehend.

1208
00:46:15,210 --> 00:46:16,510
And so that makes mushrooms

1209
00:46:17,050 --> 00:46:18,030
very mysterious,

1210
00:46:18,409 --> 00:46:20,889
and that's why the reason I'm so drawn

1211
00:46:20,889 --> 00:46:21,550
to them

1212
00:46:21,885 --> 00:46:23,505
is that they are just

1213
00:46:24,684 --> 00:46:26,925
really mysterious. And, you know, I always tell

1214
00:46:26,925 --> 00:46:27,905
people anytime

1215
00:46:28,684 --> 00:46:31,324
you have a question about mushrooms with this

1216
00:46:31,485 --> 00:46:34,045
that starts with the word why, the answer

1217
00:46:34,045 --> 00:46:35,505
is always the same.

1218
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:37,819
I don't know. Nobody knows.

1219
00:46:38,359 --> 00:46:40,440
And so we have so much to learn

1220
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:41,260
about mushrooms,

1221
00:46:42,279 --> 00:46:45,079
and, yes, those evolutionary pressures that are shaping

1222
00:46:45,079 --> 00:46:47,559
them, but most of those evolutionary pressures are

1223
00:46:47,559 --> 00:46:48,539
things that happen

1224
00:46:49,014 --> 00:46:49,914
deep underground

1225
00:46:50,695 --> 00:46:53,414
or inside of a log. So we just

1226
00:46:53,414 --> 00:46:55,894
don't have any idea what's going on, but

1227
00:46:55,894 --> 00:46:57,994
it's definitely chemical warfare

1228
00:46:58,454 --> 00:47:01,355
with other species of fungi and bacteria,

1229
00:47:02,295 --> 00:47:02,795
viruses.

1230
00:47:04,690 --> 00:47:06,690
And, you know, we know that they like

1231
00:47:06,690 --> 00:47:09,730
rain, so some mushrooms will adapt to drier

1232
00:47:09,730 --> 00:47:10,230
areas,

1233
00:47:11,010 --> 00:47:13,250
by maybe the cap not opening up so

1234
00:47:13,250 --> 00:47:15,170
much. So it's more like a puffball on

1235
00:47:15,170 --> 00:47:17,010
a stick. We see that a lot in

1236
00:47:17,010 --> 00:47:18,150
more arid areas.

1237
00:47:18,965 --> 00:47:20,724
But for the most part, we just have

1238
00:47:20,724 --> 00:47:23,605
no concept of what these pressures are, and

1239
00:47:23,605 --> 00:47:26,804
the evolution has been really interesting. You have

1240
00:47:26,804 --> 00:47:28,744
all of these crazy chemicals,

1241
00:47:29,364 --> 00:47:30,585
all of these pigments,

1242
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:33,640
and you have mushrooms that are almost any

1243
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:34,780
color of the rainbow,

1244
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:35,900
but

1245
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:36,860
nobody

1246
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,840
really has any idea why any mushroom is

1247
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,160
any color, whether it has a benefit to

1248
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:44,699
the mushroom or not.

1249
00:47:45,094 --> 00:47:46,934
If it does have a benefit, how does

1250
00:47:46,934 --> 00:47:47,674
that work?

1251
00:47:49,094 --> 00:47:50,234
It's just completely

1252
00:47:50,855 --> 00:47:51,355
mysterious.

1253
00:47:52,135 --> 00:47:53,734
Well, while we're talking about color, I was

1254
00:47:53,734 --> 00:47:55,414
gonna ask you this during the third set.

1255
00:47:55,414 --> 00:47:56,554
Let's put it in here.

1256
00:47:57,014 --> 00:47:59,780
You know, the the the mushrooms that are

1257
00:47:59,780 --> 00:48:02,900
commonly called albinos but are usually leucistic in

1258
00:48:02,900 --> 00:48:06,579
the in the modern cultivation world, they're they're

1259
00:48:06,579 --> 00:48:08,420
they're they're very wanted, like, you know, the

1260
00:48:08,420 --> 00:48:11,559
albino penis envy and and others, albino Louisiana.

1261
00:48:11,940 --> 00:48:12,179
And,

1262
00:48:12,954 --> 00:48:14,414
is any of the

1263
00:48:15,755 --> 00:48:15,835
the

1264
00:48:16,875 --> 00:48:19,454
is there an attractive aspect to the leucistic

1265
00:48:19,675 --> 00:48:21,994
part about its functioning? Or is it just

1266
00:48:21,994 --> 00:48:24,875
because an a leucistic mushroom just, like, looks

1267
00:48:24,875 --> 00:48:27,559
cool because it's so different? Is there anything

1268
00:48:27,780 --> 00:48:28,280
biologically

1269
00:48:28,660 --> 00:48:30,599
about it that makes it more preferable

1270
00:48:31,219 --> 00:48:33,719
than the non leucistic variety?

1271
00:48:35,140 --> 00:48:37,460
Well, a lot of those albino strains do

1272
00:48:37,460 --> 00:48:39,780
tend to be pretty strong. So maybe they're

1273
00:48:39,780 --> 00:48:40,180
putting more of their energy into producing alkaloids

1274
00:48:40,180 --> 00:48:40,579
since they don't have to produce all of

1275
00:48:40,579 --> 00:48:41,079
the

1276
00:48:45,715 --> 00:48:46,215
pigments.

1277
00:48:46,594 --> 00:48:48,914
But that's just a guess. It seems like

1278
00:48:48,914 --> 00:48:49,735
these pigments

1279
00:48:50,434 --> 00:48:51,494
are missing

1280
00:48:52,275 --> 00:48:55,550
occasionally just by chance, and that can happen

1281
00:48:55,610 --> 00:48:58,410
in any mushroom, just sometimes, like, one in

1282
00:48:58,410 --> 00:49:00,809
a thousand, you'll come across a mushroom that

1283
00:49:00,809 --> 00:49:04,010
is just missing its color, and typically there's

1284
00:49:04,010 --> 00:49:05,469
several different molecules

1285
00:49:05,769 --> 00:49:08,344
that all mix together to make the color

1286
00:49:08,344 --> 00:49:10,744
of a mushroom. So, usually, it's just missing

1287
00:49:10,744 --> 00:49:11,565
one of them.

1288
00:49:11,864 --> 00:49:14,045
And so for example, the spores

1289
00:49:14,664 --> 00:49:17,085
often have a dark color, and

1290
00:49:17,545 --> 00:49:19,644
often the the darkest color,

1291
00:49:20,264 --> 00:49:21,484
is missing giving

1292
00:49:21,900 --> 00:49:23,980
spores kind of a reddish look. So that'll

1293
00:49:23,980 --> 00:49:25,359
be the red spore varieties,

1294
00:49:26,059 --> 00:49:26,639
but sometimes,

1295
00:49:27,500 --> 00:49:29,260
other pigments are missing and you get other

1296
00:49:29,260 --> 00:49:31,019
colors, and then sometimes all of them are

1297
00:49:31,019 --> 00:49:33,099
missing, and the spores just end up being

1298
00:49:33,099 --> 00:49:33,599
white

1299
00:49:33,900 --> 00:49:36,880
or clear in a normally dark spored mushroom.

1300
00:49:37,775 --> 00:49:40,414
I think with the spore color, that's one

1301
00:49:40,414 --> 00:49:42,735
one pressure that we've kinda figured out what

1302
00:49:42,735 --> 00:49:44,594
that does do because

1303
00:49:45,055 --> 00:49:48,335
the ultraviolet light, the UVA and UVB from

1304
00:49:48,335 --> 00:49:49,635
the the sun

1305
00:49:50,099 --> 00:49:50,599
sterilizes,

1306
00:49:51,700 --> 00:49:54,420
you know, breaks the DNA chain, sterilizes the

1307
00:49:54,420 --> 00:49:57,860
spores. So it's more likely that dark spored

1308
00:49:57,860 --> 00:50:00,519
mushrooms are found with a wider distribution,

1309
00:50:01,619 --> 00:50:02,680
something like copernellus

1310
00:50:02,980 --> 00:50:04,920
micaceous or some of these safherellas.

1311
00:50:05,565 --> 00:50:07,964
You'll find the same mushroom all over the

1312
00:50:07,964 --> 00:50:10,144
world. Whereas with the white spore mushroom,

1313
00:50:10,684 --> 00:50:12,844
it's much less common that you find the

1314
00:50:12,844 --> 00:50:15,264
same exact species on different continents,

1315
00:50:15,964 --> 00:50:18,364
and that's probably because when you have a

1316
00:50:18,364 --> 00:50:19,505
white spore mushroom,

1317
00:50:20,130 --> 00:50:22,869
any ultraviolet that hits it will just sterilize

1318
00:50:22,929 --> 00:50:25,010
the DNA in there and and kill the

1319
00:50:25,010 --> 00:50:25,510
spore.

1320
00:50:25,969 --> 00:50:26,469
Wow.

1321
00:50:27,329 --> 00:50:29,909
Developing their own sun suntan lotion.

1322
00:50:31,089 --> 00:50:33,730
One of the wildest discoveries that I've come

1323
00:50:33,730 --> 00:50:36,085
across in mushroom science was that the genes

1324
00:50:36,144 --> 00:50:37,284
responsible for

1325
00:50:37,585 --> 00:50:38,085
psilocybin

1326
00:50:38,464 --> 00:50:40,005
seem to have jumped between

1327
00:50:40,304 --> 00:50:42,625
species. And I I learned this this term

1328
00:50:42,625 --> 00:50:45,764
for horizontal gene transfer, which again

1329
00:50:46,224 --> 00:50:48,144
put puts us kinda in the the realm

1330
00:50:48,144 --> 00:50:50,179
of things we don't know and magic, I

1331
00:50:50,179 --> 00:50:52,339
guess. But could you explain what we know

1332
00:50:52,339 --> 00:50:53,159
about horizontal

1333
00:50:53,619 --> 00:50:56,259
gene transfer in fungi and and how what

1334
00:50:56,259 --> 00:50:58,339
that tells us about the evolutionary role of

1335
00:50:58,339 --> 00:50:58,839
psilocybin

1336
00:50:59,139 --> 00:51:00,039
in these mushrooms?

1337
00:51:01,875 --> 00:51:04,275
Yeah. So, normally, in evolution, you get your

1338
00:51:04,275 --> 00:51:05,494
genes from your parents,

1339
00:51:05,954 --> 00:51:08,355
and, you know, things get passed down that

1340
00:51:08,355 --> 00:51:08,855
way.

1341
00:51:09,235 --> 00:51:10,135
But, occasionally,

1342
00:51:10,675 --> 00:51:13,635
in nature, you find these genes that are

1343
00:51:13,635 --> 00:51:16,135
not from the parents, and they're just completely

1344
00:51:17,250 --> 00:51:19,489
different, and so you'll find genes from a

1345
00:51:19,489 --> 00:51:20,949
completely different organism

1346
00:51:21,650 --> 00:51:24,130
inside of another organism, and that's called a

1347
00:51:24,130 --> 00:51:26,690
horizontal gene transfer. And there's a lot of

1348
00:51:26,690 --> 00:51:29,570
ways that can happen. There's bacteria, and there

1349
00:51:29,570 --> 00:51:32,594
are viruses that will insert foreign DNA from

1350
00:51:32,594 --> 00:51:35,655
one organism into another. That's how Monsanto

1351
00:51:35,954 --> 00:51:37,255
makes all of their transgenetic

1352
00:51:37,635 --> 00:51:40,054
crops as a bacteria called algal bacterium,

1353
00:51:41,394 --> 00:51:43,315
but it also can happen just due to

1354
00:51:43,315 --> 00:51:46,054
physical damage. Like, if you take two completely

1355
00:51:46,114 --> 00:51:47,369
different types of mushrooms,

1356
00:51:59,369 --> 00:52:00,844
back back together, and sometimes

1357
00:52:01,144 --> 00:52:03,644
DNA from completely unrelated organisms

1358
00:52:04,344 --> 00:52:06,364
will stick together, and occasionally,

1359
00:52:06,824 --> 00:52:08,284
it continues to function.

1360
00:52:08,905 --> 00:52:11,005
And so this psilocybin

1361
00:52:11,545 --> 00:52:12,364
gene cluster,

1362
00:52:13,980 --> 00:52:14,719
got inherited

1363
00:52:15,099 --> 00:52:15,920
in psilocybin

1364
00:52:16,300 --> 00:52:19,280
about thirty million years ago or got inserted

1365
00:52:19,340 --> 00:52:21,519
with horizontal gene transfer, and

1366
00:52:21,820 --> 00:52:23,280
that's quite a while ago.

1367
00:52:24,139 --> 00:52:26,139
You know, humans have only been on the

1368
00:52:26,139 --> 00:52:28,674
Earth about three hundred thousand years, so these

1369
00:52:28,674 --> 00:52:30,295
psilocybin mushrooms are

1370
00:52:30,674 --> 00:52:32,295
much older than humans.

1371
00:52:33,154 --> 00:52:34,914
And so we can only guess as to

1372
00:52:34,914 --> 00:52:36,534
how and why that happened.

1373
00:52:37,315 --> 00:52:39,734
But just looking at all of the DNA

1374
00:52:39,795 --> 00:52:42,114
sequences, we can kind of figure out when

1375
00:52:42,114 --> 00:52:42,934
these organisms

1376
00:52:43,394 --> 00:52:44,250
acquired these

1377
00:52:44,730 --> 00:52:46,889
genes. And I think it's actually pretty common

1378
00:52:46,889 --> 00:52:50,429
in nature that horizontal gene transfer happens.

1379
00:52:50,730 --> 00:52:52,730
It's just that usually it's not in such

1380
00:52:52,730 --> 00:52:54,750
an iconic thing as the

1381
00:52:55,050 --> 00:52:58,090
psilocybin gene cluster, so we usually don't notice

1382
00:52:58,090 --> 00:52:58,590
it.

1383
00:52:59,114 --> 00:53:01,034
But there's a lot of different mushrooms that

1384
00:53:01,034 --> 00:53:03,835
have psilocybin, and they are not all closely

1385
00:53:03,835 --> 00:53:04,335
related.

1386
00:53:04,715 --> 00:53:06,494
We have six or seven genera,

1387
00:53:07,114 --> 00:53:07,614
and

1388
00:53:07,994 --> 00:53:08,815
the psilocybin

1389
00:53:09,114 --> 00:53:09,934
gene cluster

1390
00:53:10,554 --> 00:53:12,574
for most of them is

1391
00:53:13,230 --> 00:53:16,349
the same gene. And so they definitely did

1392
00:53:16,349 --> 00:53:18,050
not evolve independently.

1393
00:53:19,309 --> 00:53:20,530
Psilocybin involved

1394
00:53:21,070 --> 00:53:24,050
in something and then got transferred horizontally

1395
00:53:24,510 --> 00:53:25,570
to all of these

1396
00:53:25,994 --> 00:53:28,474
different mushrooms. But we don't know what that

1397
00:53:28,474 --> 00:53:28,974
was.

1398
00:53:30,714 --> 00:53:32,634
No. We don't know what it is. There's,

1399
00:53:32,954 --> 00:53:35,514
there's a paper by Jason Slott where he

1400
00:53:35,514 --> 00:53:38,335
found some similar genes in the apheliales,

1401
00:53:38,954 --> 00:53:40,574
and that is a group

1402
00:53:40,954 --> 00:53:44,150
of crust fungi. So it's possible that

1403
00:53:44,530 --> 00:53:46,769
they got the the gene from some crust

1404
00:53:46,769 --> 00:53:48,929
fungi, but it's also possible it came from

1405
00:53:48,929 --> 00:53:51,409
somewhere else. Maybe it came from something that

1406
00:53:51,409 --> 00:53:54,150
went extinct, and now these genes live on,

1407
00:53:54,494 --> 00:53:57,054
in the mushrooms, but the original organism that

1408
00:53:57,054 --> 00:53:59,154
evolved them is no longer here.

1409
00:54:00,335 --> 00:54:02,654
So when when when I was,

1410
00:54:02,974 --> 00:54:05,694
reading about horizontal gene transfer, I was thinking

1411
00:54:05,694 --> 00:54:06,914
it was more about,

1412
00:54:07,949 --> 00:54:10,130
mushroom to mushroom, different varieties

1413
00:54:12,989 --> 00:54:15,230
reaching each other with their spores. But now

1414
00:54:15,230 --> 00:54:17,309
I realize it's it's it's it's much bigger

1415
00:54:17,309 --> 00:54:17,969
than that.

1416
00:54:19,230 --> 00:54:21,170
Do you think that we could be

1417
00:54:21,575 --> 00:54:24,715
still experiencing horizontal gene transfer regularly

1418
00:54:25,255 --> 00:54:27,414
now, but we don't know it because it's

1419
00:54:27,414 --> 00:54:29,494
gonna take tens of thousands or hundreds of

1420
00:54:29,494 --> 00:54:31,494
thousands of years for it to evolve? Like

1421
00:54:31,494 --> 00:54:33,414
like, somehow it always seems like all of

1422
00:54:33,414 --> 00:54:36,135
these these crosses happened, you know, all these

1423
00:54:36,135 --> 00:54:39,070
millions of years ago. But but re based

1424
00:54:39,070 --> 00:54:40,750
on what you're saying, they could also be

1425
00:54:40,750 --> 00:54:42,909
happening right now, but we're never gonna be

1426
00:54:42,909 --> 00:54:44,050
around to see them.

1427
00:54:45,230 --> 00:54:47,150
Yeah. Well, the product that's slow is the

1428
00:54:47,150 --> 00:54:47,650
evolution,

1429
00:54:48,670 --> 00:54:49,730
you know, the mutations

1430
00:54:50,109 --> 00:54:50,849
over time

1431
00:54:51,155 --> 00:54:52,534
and a beneficial mutation,

1432
00:54:53,394 --> 00:54:56,355
doing better than another one. But horizontal gene

1433
00:54:56,355 --> 00:54:58,855
transfer is a very rapid thing. It happens

1434
00:54:59,234 --> 00:55:01,094
just, you know, basically instantly.

1435
00:55:01,635 --> 00:55:03,335
And so you just all of a sudden

1436
00:55:03,394 --> 00:55:04,534
have these genes,

1437
00:55:05,670 --> 00:55:08,230
transferred from one organism to another, and I

1438
00:55:08,230 --> 00:55:10,949
think it probably happens all the time in

1439
00:55:10,949 --> 00:55:13,750
nature. It probably happens inside your body every

1440
00:55:13,750 --> 00:55:15,929
day, and you just don't even notice it.

1441
00:55:17,125 --> 00:55:17,625
But,

1442
00:55:18,244 --> 00:55:19,845
you know, so I think it's rare that

1443
00:55:19,845 --> 00:55:21,144
we do notice it.

1444
00:55:21,605 --> 00:55:22,105
Mhmm.

1445
00:55:23,285 --> 00:55:24,805
So when we were we were talking in

1446
00:55:24,805 --> 00:55:26,005
the first set about,

1447
00:55:26,325 --> 00:55:29,285
how many of the, mushroom species are yet

1448
00:55:29,285 --> 00:55:30,585
to be, discovered

1449
00:55:31,409 --> 00:55:33,170
and that, you know, you are out in,

1450
00:55:33,489 --> 00:55:35,190
you are out in the forest and elsewhere

1451
00:55:35,409 --> 00:55:38,949
finding new, psilocybin species yourself along with others.

1452
00:55:40,449 --> 00:55:42,449
I know this is a very speculative question,

1453
00:55:42,449 --> 00:55:44,210
and luckily, it doesn't start with the word

1454
00:55:44,210 --> 00:55:46,304
why. But do you do you think that

1455
00:55:46,304 --> 00:55:49,284
we've even found half of the psilocybin

1456
00:55:50,065 --> 00:55:50,565
expressing

1457
00:55:50,864 --> 00:55:53,824
mushrooms out there? And of the ones that,

1458
00:55:54,144 --> 00:55:55,364
are still to be found,

1459
00:55:55,984 --> 00:55:57,925
do you think that they are,

1460
00:55:58,545 --> 00:56:01,130
you know, clustered in some part of the

1461
00:56:01,130 --> 00:56:02,589
world because of

1462
00:56:02,889 --> 00:56:05,449
the environment that seems to be more friendly

1463
00:56:05,449 --> 00:56:06,269
to psilocybe?

1464
00:56:06,730 --> 00:56:08,029
Or do you think that,

1465
00:56:08,489 --> 00:56:10,809
they're just as likely to be anywhere at

1466
00:56:10,809 --> 00:56:12,409
this point just because they've had so much

1467
00:56:12,409 --> 00:56:13,630
time to spread around?

1468
00:56:15,684 --> 00:56:18,324
Well, I think we've probably discovered about half

1469
00:56:18,324 --> 00:56:21,204
of them. Mhmm. And certainly a lot of

1470
00:56:21,204 --> 00:56:24,164
the bigger, more common ones that are found

1471
00:56:24,164 --> 00:56:26,324
in places where a lot of people live

1472
00:56:26,324 --> 00:56:28,184
are more likely to be named,

1473
00:56:28,690 --> 00:56:31,090
but even in a state like California that

1474
00:56:31,090 --> 00:56:33,170
has people all over it, you know, there's

1475
00:56:33,170 --> 00:56:36,309
there's new ones being discovered here. There's probably

1476
00:56:36,449 --> 00:56:39,349
new species of psilocybin mushrooms to be discovered

1477
00:56:39,489 --> 00:56:40,710
in in every state,

1478
00:56:41,315 --> 00:56:43,394
and then some groups are just studied a

1479
00:56:43,394 --> 00:56:44,855
whole lot less than others.

1480
00:56:45,795 --> 00:56:47,255
For example, psilocybe

1481
00:56:47,554 --> 00:56:50,275
is generally pretty well studied because they're so

1482
00:56:50,275 --> 00:56:51,894
iconic, but gymnopilis

1483
00:56:52,434 --> 00:56:53,174
and paniolis

1484
00:56:53,554 --> 00:56:56,454
are two other genera that are extremely common,

1485
00:56:57,140 --> 00:56:59,480
much more common than psilocybe, and

1486
00:56:59,860 --> 00:57:00,760
they are

1487
00:57:01,059 --> 00:57:02,039
kind of a taxonomic

1488
00:57:02,340 --> 00:57:05,800
mess and that some species were described, but

1489
00:57:05,860 --> 00:57:08,579
we don't really know which names go with

1490
00:57:08,579 --> 00:57:09,400
which species.

1491
00:57:10,265 --> 00:57:12,425
And there's a whole bunch of them that

1492
00:57:12,425 --> 00:57:15,724
just don't seem to have names. And so,

1493
00:57:15,945 --> 00:57:17,864
you know, a lot of in North America

1494
00:57:17,864 --> 00:57:19,945
where there's tons of people around, you know,

1495
00:57:19,945 --> 00:57:22,184
a lot of the new psilocybin discoveries are

1496
00:57:22,184 --> 00:57:23,405
gonna come from Paniolus,

1497
00:57:23,704 --> 00:57:24,204
Gymnopyllus,

1498
00:57:25,150 --> 00:57:25,650
gonaecibula,

1499
00:57:26,190 --> 00:57:26,690
inosibiasis,

1500
00:57:26,989 --> 00:57:28,670
some of these other genera that,

1501
00:57:28,989 --> 00:57:31,969
people don't pay quite as much attention to.

1502
00:57:32,429 --> 00:57:33,869
You know, we've been talking And then Go

1503
00:57:33,869 --> 00:57:34,369
ahead.

1504
00:57:35,070 --> 00:57:36,909
The second part of your question, are there

1505
00:57:36,909 --> 00:57:38,349
some parts of the world that are more

1506
00:57:38,349 --> 00:57:39,570
conducive to

1507
00:57:39,894 --> 00:57:43,335
psilocybin mushrooms? And, you know, that's really the

1508
00:57:43,335 --> 00:57:44,715
cloud forest habitat.

1509
00:57:45,175 --> 00:57:47,575
And so cloud forest is something that we

1510
00:57:47,575 --> 00:57:49,815
don't get in The United States, but you

1511
00:57:49,815 --> 00:57:51,735
don't have to go very far south of

1512
00:57:51,735 --> 00:57:52,394
the border,

1513
00:57:53,130 --> 00:57:56,109
before you start getting cloud forests in Mexico.

1514
00:57:56,889 --> 00:57:58,750
The furthest north is,

1515
00:57:59,449 --> 00:58:01,949
a place called El Cielo in Tamaulipas,

1516
00:58:02,969 --> 00:58:04,969
just a little bit South of Texas. And

1517
00:58:04,969 --> 00:58:07,534
then as you go further south in Mexico,

1518
00:58:07,534 --> 00:58:09,614
you get more and more cloud forest. And

1519
00:58:09,614 --> 00:58:11,534
the cloud forest is one of the most

1520
00:58:11,534 --> 00:58:12,594
diverse ecosystems

1521
00:58:13,054 --> 00:58:13,954
in the world,

1522
00:58:14,654 --> 00:58:16,914
and it's something that you see between

1523
00:58:17,694 --> 00:58:18,434
1,000

1524
00:58:18,494 --> 00:58:20,335
meters and 2,500

1525
00:58:20,335 --> 00:58:21,234
meters elevation.

1526
00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:23,920
And these forests get a whole lot of

1527
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:25,220
rain, and then,

1528
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:29,920
most afternoons, the clouds come in. Very often,

1529
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:30,660
it rains,

1530
00:58:31,039 --> 00:58:32,260
kinda every afternoon.

1531
00:58:32,559 --> 00:58:34,340
And so you get a lot of

1532
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:35,140
precipitation

1533
00:58:35,519 --> 00:58:37,140
there, a lot of humidity.

1534
00:58:37,655 --> 00:58:40,375
And if you go down in elevation, it

1535
00:58:40,375 --> 00:58:42,695
starts to get real hot and things dry

1536
00:58:42,695 --> 00:58:44,454
out quicker. So then you get into the

1537
00:58:44,454 --> 00:58:44,954
tropical

1538
00:58:45,494 --> 00:58:47,494
ecosystems. And then if you go up in

1539
00:58:47,494 --> 00:58:50,349
elevation, it starts to get very cold. And

1540
00:58:50,349 --> 00:58:52,909
so in these tropical ecosystems, the mushrooms that

1541
00:58:52,909 --> 00:58:53,969
tend to do well

1542
00:58:54,269 --> 00:58:56,690
are these smaller white spore mushrooms.

1543
00:58:56,989 --> 00:58:59,309
And as you go up and it gets

1544
00:58:59,309 --> 00:59:01,630
colder, the mushrooms that tend to do well

1545
00:59:01,630 --> 00:59:02,449
are larger.

1546
00:59:03,184 --> 00:59:05,025
So that's where you find a lot of

1547
00:59:05,025 --> 00:59:07,925
your really big porcini and chanterelles,

1548
00:59:09,505 --> 00:59:11,264
up at the high elevations. But in the

1549
00:59:11,264 --> 00:59:13,605
middle, you have the highest biodiversity,

1550
00:59:13,985 --> 00:59:15,985
and you go into these cloud forests, and

1551
00:59:15,985 --> 00:59:18,780
the plant diversity is just insane. You have

1552
00:59:19,260 --> 00:59:21,760
hundreds of species of trees per acre.

1553
00:59:22,059 --> 00:59:23,019
Whereas here,

1554
00:59:23,340 --> 00:59:25,420
on the West Coast Of The United States,

1555
00:59:25,420 --> 00:59:27,420
you know, we might have five or 10

1556
00:59:27,420 --> 00:59:29,980
species of trees per acre, and the fungal

1557
00:59:29,980 --> 00:59:32,484
diversity follows the plant diversity. And then if

1558
00:59:32,484 --> 00:59:34,405
you start looking at the mushrooms, you'll see

1559
00:59:34,405 --> 00:59:34,905
cordyceps

1560
00:59:35,364 --> 00:59:35,864
everywhere.

1561
00:59:36,565 --> 00:59:39,284
There's thousands of different kinds. And then those

1562
00:59:39,284 --> 00:59:41,204
are the habitats that you find the most

1563
00:59:41,204 --> 00:59:43,224
diversity of psilocybin mushrooms.

1564
00:59:44,164 --> 00:59:46,184
Just sometimes we'll we'll find

1565
00:59:46,659 --> 00:59:49,300
10 different species of psilocybe in in one

1566
00:59:49,300 --> 00:59:51,480
day in in some of these places,

1567
00:59:52,099 --> 00:59:54,280
just because the habitats are so diverse.

1568
00:59:54,900 --> 00:59:57,940
Just hearing you describe that space is so

1569
00:59:57,940 --> 01:00:00,815
inspiring. I mean, it sounds like a science

1570
01:00:00,815 --> 01:00:01,554
and photography

1571
01:00:01,855 --> 01:00:03,954
wonderland. It sounds really wonderful.

1572
01:00:04,974 --> 01:00:07,934
I'm curious whether or not these these these

1573
01:00:07,934 --> 01:00:10,094
cloud forests that have got all of this

1574
01:00:10,094 --> 01:00:11,394
very delicate biology,

1575
01:00:11,934 --> 01:00:13,859
are they starting to get trampled

1576
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:14,820
by,

1577
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:17,599
folks around the world who are interested in

1578
01:00:17,599 --> 01:00:19,460
these and other mushrooms who are,

1579
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:22,079
you know, looking to explore it? It sounds

1580
01:00:22,079 --> 01:00:24,000
like a delicate environment and if it's at

1581
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:25,940
the top of the list, I can imagine,

1582
01:00:26,664 --> 01:00:29,944
you know, citizen scientists and corporate scientists and

1583
01:00:29,944 --> 01:00:33,224
university scientists and, you know, backpackers and, you

1584
01:00:33,224 --> 01:00:35,224
know, all these people going to this area

1585
01:00:35,224 --> 01:00:37,464
to to see the beauty and then maybe,

1586
01:00:37,464 --> 01:00:39,625
like, you know, become famous by, you know,

1587
01:00:39,625 --> 01:00:42,030
finding their specialty mushroom or something like that.

1588
01:00:42,110 --> 01:00:44,210
And it and it makes me have concerns

1589
01:00:44,429 --> 01:00:47,090
for the environment itself. Is it is it

1590
01:00:47,150 --> 01:00:49,390
so early that we're not seeing that yet,

1591
01:00:49,390 --> 01:00:52,050
or or is the destruction of these mushroom

1592
01:00:52,110 --> 01:00:53,489
habitats by curiosity,

1593
01:00:54,030 --> 01:00:55,489
you know, curiosity seekers,

1594
01:00:55,869 --> 01:00:57,250
already having an impact?

1595
01:00:59,025 --> 01:01:01,844
So these cloud forest habitats are being destroyed

1596
01:01:01,905 --> 01:01:04,464
at an increasing rate, but it's not the

1597
01:01:04,464 --> 01:01:06,945
curiosity seekers that are doing it. It's the

1598
01:01:06,945 --> 01:01:10,085
loggers. And so in Mexico, they've already logged

1599
01:01:10,144 --> 01:01:11,284
99%

1600
01:01:11,905 --> 01:01:13,284
of the cloud forests.

1601
01:01:14,119 --> 01:01:15,980
And so the logging,

1602
01:01:16,519 --> 01:01:19,420
continues at an increasing rate every year.

1603
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:22,680
In Central And South America, they get rid

1604
01:01:22,680 --> 01:01:23,820
of a lot of them

1605
01:01:24,119 --> 01:01:24,840
to do,

1606
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:26,380
to have cattle

1607
01:01:26,914 --> 01:01:29,494
and farm fields, that sort of thing.

1608
01:01:29,875 --> 01:01:31,094
And so

1609
01:01:31,394 --> 01:01:34,135
the the impact of people that are curious

1610
01:01:34,195 --> 01:01:36,994
and and wanna go collect mushrooms or collect

1611
01:01:36,994 --> 01:01:39,494
plants is just about nothing,

1612
01:01:40,449 --> 01:01:43,030
compared to the in impact of the loggers.

1613
01:01:44,690 --> 01:01:46,930
And, you know, these mushrooms are a very

1614
01:01:46,930 --> 01:01:50,070
sustainable resource. They've done studies where they pick

1615
01:01:50,130 --> 01:01:52,784
every single mushroom in a study plot

1616
01:01:53,184 --> 01:01:55,264
over thirty years, and what they find is

1617
01:01:55,264 --> 01:01:57,344
that if you just leave all of the

1618
01:01:57,344 --> 01:02:00,144
mushrooms there or you rip all of the

1619
01:02:00,144 --> 01:02:01,525
mushrooms out of the ground

1620
01:02:01,824 --> 01:02:03,905
or you carefully cut them off with a

1621
01:02:03,905 --> 01:02:06,244
knife, there's really no impact

1622
01:02:06,549 --> 01:02:08,889
on the number of mushrooms that come back

1623
01:02:09,109 --> 01:02:10,089
the next year.

1624
01:02:10,469 --> 01:02:13,670
But what does really impact them is cutting

1625
01:02:13,670 --> 01:02:15,429
down the trees. So if you cut down

1626
01:02:15,429 --> 01:02:16,170
the trees,

1627
01:02:17,029 --> 01:02:18,089
then the mushrooms,

1628
01:02:18,869 --> 01:02:21,029
will go away, and you'll find just the

1629
01:02:21,029 --> 01:02:21,529
same

1630
01:02:21,885 --> 01:02:24,545
40 boring mushrooms that you find in every

1631
01:02:24,765 --> 01:02:27,344
suburban backyard in these clear cuts.

1632
01:02:27,724 --> 01:02:29,965
And after about a hundred years, then,

1633
01:02:30,765 --> 01:02:32,385
it they start to come back.

1634
01:02:32,765 --> 01:02:35,010
But if you put a parking lot instead

1635
01:02:35,010 --> 01:02:35,989
of the forest,

1636
01:02:36,530 --> 01:02:39,250
then they don't really ever come back. So

1637
01:02:39,250 --> 01:02:42,050
it's really humans that are, you know, destroying

1638
01:02:42,050 --> 01:02:44,610
these ecosystems, and they just don't see the

1639
01:02:44,610 --> 01:02:45,909
value in these ecosystems.

1640
01:02:47,184 --> 01:02:48,804
And that is one of the

1641
01:02:49,105 --> 01:02:49,924
cool things

1642
01:02:50,224 --> 01:02:52,464
about mushrooms because if you can teach people

1643
01:02:52,464 --> 01:02:53,684
to forage mushrooms

1644
01:02:54,224 --> 01:02:56,784
for food or for medicine, then they have

1645
01:02:56,784 --> 01:02:58,545
a reason to go to the forest, and

1646
01:02:58,545 --> 01:03:01,079
they have a reason to preserve these forests.

1647
01:03:01,539 --> 01:03:03,059
You know, people that live in the cities

1648
01:03:03,059 --> 01:03:04,739
and just don't have any reason to go

1649
01:03:04,739 --> 01:03:06,579
to the forest, they're not gonna say anything

1650
01:03:06,579 --> 01:03:09,699
if they propose to cut down one of

1651
01:03:09,699 --> 01:03:10,980
the forest. But if you got a bunch

1652
01:03:10,980 --> 01:03:13,539
of foragers in there that are looking for

1653
01:03:13,539 --> 01:03:14,039
food

1654
01:03:14,614 --> 01:03:16,934
and psilocybe and and everything else, then they're

1655
01:03:16,934 --> 01:03:19,655
gonna complain if somebody proposes to cut down

1656
01:03:19,655 --> 01:03:22,135
their local forest. And that's one of the

1657
01:03:22,135 --> 01:03:24,875
reasons that it's important to get more people

1658
01:03:25,414 --> 01:03:28,954
into nature, get more people into mushroom foraging,

1659
01:03:29,789 --> 01:03:30,269
And,

1660
01:03:30,829 --> 01:03:33,309
when people start picking mushrooms, they spend a

1661
01:03:33,309 --> 01:03:34,590
lot more time in the woods, and they

1662
01:03:34,590 --> 01:03:35,090
realize

1663
01:03:35,630 --> 01:03:38,670
how cool and how interesting nature is and

1664
01:03:38,670 --> 01:03:41,869
how how valuable these places are. Yeah. Support

1665
01:03:41,869 --> 01:03:44,289
your nonlocal cloud forest T shirts.

1666
01:03:44,804 --> 01:03:45,304
We

1667
01:03:46,405 --> 01:03:48,484
we wanna make them more popular so they're

1668
01:03:48,484 --> 01:03:49,464
easier to protect.

1669
01:03:51,045 --> 01:03:53,444
Yeah. And, you know, the cloud forest habitat

1670
01:03:53,444 --> 01:03:56,244
is the most biodiverse, but there's cool mushrooms

1671
01:03:56,244 --> 01:03:57,304
in any habitat,

1672
01:03:58,079 --> 01:04:01,300
even the deserts outside of Los Angeles, California

1673
01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:04,480
have really cool mushrooms in them when it

1674
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:07,119
does rain. So these fungi are just waiting

1675
01:04:07,119 --> 01:04:08,640
for the rains, and after the rains that

1676
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:10,320
come up, you get all these crazy puff

1677
01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:11,974
balls on sticks and,

1678
01:04:12,515 --> 01:04:14,355
all all sorts of things. So there are

1679
01:04:14,355 --> 01:04:16,775
cool mushrooms in every habitat

1680
01:04:17,235 --> 01:04:20,114
and even ones that seem very desolate like

1681
01:04:20,114 --> 01:04:21,175
a dry grassland.

1682
01:04:21,635 --> 01:04:24,030
When the rains come, you'll find really cool,

1683
01:04:24,030 --> 01:04:26,510
unique mushrooms in the grasslands and in the

1684
01:04:26,510 --> 01:04:27,010
chaparral

1685
01:04:27,550 --> 01:04:29,550
that you won't find anywhere else and that

1686
01:04:29,550 --> 01:04:31,869
you wouldn't see in in a really nice

1687
01:04:31,869 --> 01:04:32,369
forest.

1688
01:04:33,070 --> 01:04:34,449
We've been talking about,

1689
01:04:35,070 --> 01:04:37,230
you know, arrays of mushrooms and how many

1690
01:04:37,230 --> 01:04:39,150
more there are to be described and how

1691
01:04:39,150 --> 01:04:40,675
many of the old descriptions

1692
01:04:41,054 --> 01:04:42,275
are proving inaccurate.

1693
01:04:42,974 --> 01:04:44,815
And, you know, I think that most of

1694
01:04:44,815 --> 01:04:46,655
this and and most of our realization of

1695
01:04:46,655 --> 01:04:49,695
this is due to DNA sequencing technology and

1696
01:04:49,695 --> 01:04:51,795
how it's rewriting mushroom history.

1697
01:04:52,809 --> 01:04:54,250
A, would you think that that's that is

1698
01:04:54,250 --> 01:04:56,809
right, that that's the the key technology at

1699
01:04:56,809 --> 01:04:59,289
the core of it? And and also for

1700
01:04:59,289 --> 01:05:00,750
for folks who are not,

1701
01:05:01,130 --> 01:05:03,389
deep into this aspect, would you explain

1702
01:05:03,929 --> 01:05:07,605
what dna sequencing is doing for mycology as

1703
01:05:07,605 --> 01:05:08,184
a whole

1704
01:05:09,845 --> 01:05:12,164
yeah that's accurate and you know it's not

1705
01:05:12,164 --> 01:05:15,285
just mycology it's every branch of life has

1706
01:05:15,285 --> 01:05:17,625
been revolutionized by dna sequencing

1707
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:21,199
And, you know, DNA sequencing is really just

1708
01:05:21,199 --> 01:05:22,340
reading the DNA.

1709
01:05:22,880 --> 01:05:24,260
And so these molecules,

1710
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:27,300
encode a huge amount of data,

1711
01:05:27,679 --> 01:05:30,880
and they're so tiny that until recently, we

1712
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:33,059
just didn't have any way to read them.

1713
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:36,744
But starting in the nineteen fifties, people started

1714
01:05:36,744 --> 01:05:39,485
to figure out this thing called DNA exists,

1715
01:05:39,545 --> 01:05:41,164
and they started to have

1716
01:05:41,465 --> 01:05:44,125
different ways of getting insight into,

1717
01:05:45,224 --> 01:05:47,699
you know, what it's saying. And it wasn't

1718
01:05:47,699 --> 01:05:50,519
until the nineteen seventies that people were actually

1719
01:05:50,579 --> 01:05:51,320
able to

1720
01:05:51,699 --> 01:05:54,659
read the individual basis just like you'd read

1721
01:05:54,659 --> 01:05:55,320
a book.

1722
01:05:55,699 --> 01:05:58,280
And it started out being extremely

1723
01:05:58,579 --> 01:06:00,519
slow and extremely expensive.

1724
01:06:01,684 --> 01:06:03,945
And then in the late nineties,

1725
01:06:05,204 --> 01:06:07,364
it started to all of a sudden get

1726
01:06:07,364 --> 01:06:09,465
cheap and practical, and all of a sudden,

1727
01:06:10,324 --> 01:06:12,184
even people in just like a,

1728
01:06:13,045 --> 01:06:14,804
you know, kind of like a a medium

1729
01:06:14,804 --> 01:06:16,755
level college laboratory could

1730
01:06:17,099 --> 01:06:18,960
start reading the DNA of things.

1731
01:06:19,420 --> 01:06:21,099
And since then, you know, every year it

1732
01:06:21,099 --> 01:06:22,640
gets cheaper and easier.

1733
01:06:23,420 --> 01:06:25,500
And so now you can set up a

1734
01:06:25,500 --> 01:06:28,780
DNA sequencing laboratory in your home for under

1735
01:06:28,780 --> 01:06:29,760
a thousand dollars

1736
01:06:30,525 --> 01:06:31,824
and start sequencing

1737
01:06:32,204 --> 01:06:34,924
things. I'm sitting in my laboratory right now

1738
01:06:34,924 --> 01:06:36,605
in my house, and I have a little

1739
01:06:36,605 --> 01:06:38,944
DNA sequencing table set up over here.

1740
01:06:39,405 --> 01:06:41,424
And so I got pipettes and a PCR

1741
01:06:41,484 --> 01:06:43,905
machine and a whole bunch of chemicals, and

1742
01:06:44,119 --> 01:06:46,780
I can just take any any living thing,

1743
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:49,239
doesn't even have to be a mushroom, and

1744
01:06:49,239 --> 01:06:51,239
put it into a tube, grind it up,

1745
01:06:51,239 --> 01:06:53,079
put it into a machine. And if I

1746
01:06:53,079 --> 01:06:54,059
start the process,

1747
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:56,280
about nine in the morning, I can have

1748
01:06:56,280 --> 01:06:57,820
my results by midnight.

1749
01:06:58,635 --> 01:06:59,454
And so,

1750
01:07:00,235 --> 01:07:03,434
it's really incredible, and it's also enabled people

1751
01:07:03,434 --> 01:07:05,375
to make really cool discoveries

1752
01:07:06,155 --> 01:07:08,235
on their own. So there are not very

1753
01:07:08,235 --> 01:07:11,215
many branches of science where just one person

1754
01:07:11,639 --> 01:07:13,880
who is a beginner can make a really

1755
01:07:13,880 --> 01:07:15,980
valuable discovery, but mycology

1756
01:07:16,359 --> 01:07:19,579
is probably the science where it is easiest

1757
01:07:19,719 --> 01:07:21,900
for beginners to make a huge impact.

1758
01:07:22,519 --> 01:07:23,019
And

1759
01:07:24,244 --> 01:07:25,045
so you can,

1760
01:07:25,525 --> 01:07:27,364
you know, you can sequence these things really

1761
01:07:27,364 --> 01:07:30,485
easily, and it's actually cheaper and easier to

1762
01:07:30,485 --> 01:07:31,625
do it at scale.

1763
01:07:32,005 --> 01:07:34,425
So there's a laboratory called MycotaLab

1764
01:07:34,965 --> 01:07:36,425
run by Steven Russell,

1765
01:07:36,980 --> 01:07:38,359
and he sequences,

1766
01:07:39,299 --> 01:07:41,400
oh, probably about 20,000

1767
01:07:41,460 --> 01:07:41,960
mushrooms

1768
01:07:42,339 --> 01:07:45,380
per year. Yeah. And he has events called

1769
01:07:45,380 --> 01:07:47,859
MycoBlitz where anybody in the world can just

1770
01:07:47,859 --> 01:07:48,599
send in

1771
01:07:49,059 --> 01:07:51,000
unlimited quantities of mushrooms,

1772
01:07:51,695 --> 01:07:53,715
and he will sequence them for free.

1773
01:07:54,094 --> 01:07:56,275
And so he gets grants and donations

1774
01:07:56,655 --> 01:07:58,974
to, to fund it. But if you do

1775
01:07:58,974 --> 01:08:01,155
it at scale, the price goes down,

1776
01:08:01,614 --> 01:08:03,135
to about 20¢

1777
01:08:03,135 --> 01:08:05,550
per DNA sequence. Wow. So,

1778
01:08:06,269 --> 01:08:09,730
yeah, you can discover new things very inexpensively.

1779
01:08:11,390 --> 01:08:13,650
And a lot of places in North America

1780
01:08:13,869 --> 01:08:15,650
have free DNA sequencing.

1781
01:08:16,189 --> 01:08:17,569
I think Europe in British,

1782
01:08:18,270 --> 01:08:21,505
or Europe near British Columbia. Sure. British Columbia

1783
01:08:22,524 --> 01:08:24,284
is is one of the places that has

1784
01:08:24,284 --> 01:08:25,585
free DNA sequencing.

1785
01:08:26,125 --> 01:08:27,404
And so you can,

1786
01:08:28,045 --> 01:08:30,704
anybody that lives in British Columbia or Alberta

1787
01:08:31,005 --> 01:08:31,904
or California,

1788
01:08:33,609 --> 01:08:36,090
There's a whole map of places where you

1789
01:08:36,090 --> 01:08:38,329
can get free DNA sequencing, or anybody can

1790
01:08:38,329 --> 01:08:40,750
do it for free during the MycoBlitz. But,

1791
01:08:41,289 --> 01:08:43,449
you know, people just doesn't really take any

1792
01:08:43,449 --> 01:08:45,529
specialized knowledge at all just to go out

1793
01:08:45,529 --> 01:08:47,550
into the woods, take pictures of mushrooms,

1794
01:08:47,850 --> 01:08:50,064
dry them out, and drop them in the

1795
01:08:50,064 --> 01:08:50,564
mail.

1796
01:08:50,945 --> 01:08:53,824
And then, the DNA sequence pops up on

1797
01:08:53,824 --> 01:08:55,364
your iNaturalist observation,

1798
01:08:55,824 --> 01:08:56,324
and,

1799
01:08:57,185 --> 01:08:59,984
people will come along and identify it based

1800
01:08:59,984 --> 01:09:01,364
on the DNA sequence.

1801
01:09:01,984 --> 01:09:02,725
And so

1802
01:09:03,380 --> 01:09:05,220
this is something that we really need people

1803
01:09:05,220 --> 01:09:08,199
to do because a DNA sequence by itself

1804
01:09:08,340 --> 01:09:10,739
is meaningless. It doesn't have meaning until you

1805
01:09:10,739 --> 01:09:13,399
compare it with other DNA sequences.

1806
01:09:14,020 --> 01:09:16,454
And so the more that there are, the

1807
01:09:16,454 --> 01:09:18,695
more meaning each one has and the more

1808
01:09:18,695 --> 01:09:21,755
we understand about the fungi in any given

1809
01:09:21,814 --> 01:09:22,795
part of the world.

1810
01:09:23,255 --> 01:09:24,074
And so,

1811
01:09:24,695 --> 01:09:26,715
you know, it's really important to have people

1812
01:09:26,854 --> 01:09:29,829
just collecting and sending stuff in. And even

1813
01:09:29,829 --> 01:09:32,869
here in California, we discover new new novel

1814
01:09:32,869 --> 01:09:35,369
sequences that no one has ever found before

1815
01:09:35,510 --> 01:09:36,409
all the time.

1816
01:09:36,949 --> 01:09:38,010
But in places

1817
01:09:38,470 --> 01:09:41,110
that people do not collect mushrooms very often

1818
01:09:41,110 --> 01:09:41,595
in,

1819
01:09:41,994 --> 01:09:43,375
like Northern Canada,

1820
01:09:44,074 --> 01:09:46,175
North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana,

1821
01:09:47,354 --> 01:09:49,854
Louisiana, you know, places that don't have

1822
01:09:50,155 --> 01:09:50,815
a very,

1823
01:09:51,275 --> 01:09:53,055
established mycology culture.

1824
01:09:53,755 --> 01:09:56,414
You know, there's not very many DNA sequences.

1825
01:09:56,715 --> 01:09:57,569
I think we have,

1826
01:09:58,449 --> 01:10:01,329
maybe one or two from South Dakota and

1827
01:10:01,329 --> 01:10:03,489
zero from North Dakota. So we just have

1828
01:10:03,489 --> 01:10:06,789
no idea what fungi are even there.

1829
01:10:08,130 --> 01:10:08,869
And so,

1830
01:10:09,329 --> 01:10:12,074
yeah, you know, anybody can send these in,

1831
01:10:12,074 --> 01:10:14,975
and, also, anybody can start naming these species.

1832
01:10:15,994 --> 01:10:18,255
It doesn't take someone with a PhD

1833
01:10:18,795 --> 01:10:21,994
or any college degree at all to name

1834
01:10:21,994 --> 01:10:24,234
new species of mushrooms. All you have to

1835
01:10:24,234 --> 01:10:26,015
do is find the thing,

1836
01:10:26,600 --> 01:10:30,060
DNA sequence it, and then do the microscope

1837
01:10:30,119 --> 01:10:31,739
work and and write up a paper

1838
01:10:32,119 --> 01:10:34,680
and, and publish it. So it's the sort

1839
01:10:34,680 --> 01:10:36,920
of thing that anybody can do with with

1840
01:10:36,920 --> 01:10:39,154
really no training at all, And we need

1841
01:10:39,154 --> 01:10:41,395
a lot more people doing this because without

1842
01:10:41,395 --> 01:10:42,774
it, it's gonna take us

1843
01:10:43,154 --> 01:10:46,295
many, many thousands of years, just to sequence

1844
01:10:46,354 --> 01:10:49,074
or just just to name even the common

1845
01:10:49,074 --> 01:10:49,574
mushrooms,

1846
01:10:49,954 --> 01:10:51,390
that we see every day.

1847
01:10:52,510 --> 01:10:55,390
Wow. I cannot be the only person who

1848
01:10:55,390 --> 01:10:57,570
is super inspired by that, Alan.

1849
01:10:58,829 --> 01:10:59,329
Understanding,

1850
01:10:59,710 --> 01:11:01,570
hearing it laid out like that,

1851
01:11:02,270 --> 01:11:04,314
you make it sound so accessible. And my

1852
01:11:04,314 --> 01:11:06,574
next question was actually gonna be about,

1853
01:11:07,114 --> 01:11:09,274
you know, the bottleneck that I thought there

1854
01:11:09,274 --> 01:11:11,034
was with the technology. I was gonna say,

1855
01:11:11,034 --> 01:11:12,255
oh, all this interest,

1856
01:11:12,795 --> 01:11:14,635
you know, it's too bad it's bottleneck because

1857
01:11:14,635 --> 01:11:16,980
the technology is so expensive. But, you know,

1858
01:11:16,980 --> 01:11:18,500
the fact that somebody can set up a

1859
01:11:18,500 --> 01:11:20,739
basic lab to do this at home for

1860
01:11:20,739 --> 01:11:21,960
under $1,000,

1861
01:11:22,100 --> 01:11:24,659
it's just the opposite. This is this is

1862
01:11:24,659 --> 01:11:27,880
empowering, like, citizen scientists to get involved. And

1863
01:11:27,940 --> 01:11:29,699
there sounds like there's so much opportunity. Like,

1864
01:11:29,699 --> 01:11:31,784
I'm I'm on fire. I wanna go start

1865
01:11:31,784 --> 01:11:34,425
running DNA on mushrooms myself just because it

1866
01:11:34,425 --> 01:11:37,005
sounds like such a curious thing to do.

1867
01:11:38,185 --> 01:11:40,125
Do are you seeing this happen,

1868
01:11:40,984 --> 01:11:42,524
around you? Like, where

1869
01:11:43,225 --> 01:11:43,725
mycology

1870
01:11:44,185 --> 01:11:45,725
is getting more participants

1871
01:11:46,104 --> 01:11:47,270
and it's becoming

1872
01:11:47,809 --> 01:11:49,510
more I don't know like

1873
01:11:50,210 --> 01:11:50,710
even

1874
01:11:51,329 --> 01:11:54,369
it's more accessible by regular folks who are

1875
01:11:54,369 --> 01:11:58,529
not you know heavy duty degreed people with

1876
01:11:58,529 --> 01:12:00,309
access to university money

1877
01:12:01,704 --> 01:12:04,505
Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, one thing that's

1878
01:12:04,505 --> 01:12:06,744
really helped is the Internet and social media

1879
01:12:06,744 --> 01:12:08,425
because now people can take a picture of

1880
01:12:08,425 --> 01:12:10,045
a mushroom, post it online,

1881
01:12:10,984 --> 01:12:13,725
in places like, for example, the mushroom identification

1882
01:12:14,265 --> 01:12:14,765
forum,

1883
01:12:15,704 --> 01:12:16,524
on Facebook,

1884
01:12:17,199 --> 01:12:19,119
or, you know, and really anywhere that people

1885
01:12:19,119 --> 01:12:21,039
hang out online, you can post photos of

1886
01:12:21,039 --> 01:12:23,600
mushrooms, and people who know what they are

1887
01:12:23,600 --> 01:12:25,300
will identify them for you.

1888
01:12:27,199 --> 01:12:29,600
But, yeah, it's it's a sort of thing

1889
01:12:29,600 --> 01:12:30,100
where

1890
01:12:30,435 --> 01:12:32,354
everybody really should be doing it, and they

1891
01:12:32,354 --> 01:12:33,954
would be if they knew how cool it

1892
01:12:33,954 --> 01:12:35,715
was. And, you know, it's the coolest thing

1893
01:12:35,715 --> 01:12:37,314
in the world when you find something and

1894
01:12:37,314 --> 01:12:40,194
you get your DNA sequence back, and you

1895
01:12:40,194 --> 01:12:43,094
finally figure out exactly what it is.

1896
01:12:43,590 --> 01:12:46,069
And if it's rare, if it's new, that

1897
01:12:46,069 --> 01:12:47,670
sort of thing. And a lot of times,

1898
01:12:47,670 --> 01:12:49,750
you you get a DNA sequence back for

1899
01:12:49,750 --> 01:12:52,069
something that no one's ever sequenced before. You're

1900
01:12:52,069 --> 01:12:54,630
the first person ever to see where it

1901
01:12:54,630 --> 01:12:56,949
actually fits in with the the rest of

1902
01:12:56,949 --> 01:12:57,449
life,

1903
01:12:57,855 --> 01:13:00,015
And that's the sort of thing that's very

1904
01:13:00,015 --> 01:13:01,855
easy to do. I mean, even someone that

1905
01:13:01,855 --> 01:13:03,935
doesn't know much about computers could figure out

1906
01:13:03,935 --> 01:13:05,614
how to do it in just a few

1907
01:13:05,614 --> 01:13:06,114
minutes.

1908
01:13:06,895 --> 01:13:07,395
And

1909
01:13:07,855 --> 01:13:10,114
so, yeah, it is super exciting.

1910
01:13:10,574 --> 01:13:11,074
And

1911
01:13:11,460 --> 01:13:14,020
I used to go around teaching people how

1912
01:13:14,020 --> 01:13:17,060
to set up their own DNA lab, because

1913
01:13:17,060 --> 01:13:19,220
you can just, like, take the DNA lab,

1914
01:13:19,220 --> 01:13:20,739
throw it in your car, and then set

1915
01:13:20,739 --> 01:13:22,500
it up on a card table, like, at

1916
01:13:22,500 --> 01:13:23,640
a Fungus Fair,

1917
01:13:24,340 --> 01:13:26,199
or, you know, a mushroom festival.

1918
01:13:26,965 --> 01:13:28,965
And so about ten years ago, I started

1919
01:13:28,965 --> 01:13:31,864
doing that, and I was teaching DNA sequencing

1920
01:13:32,085 --> 01:13:32,585
classes,

1921
01:13:33,045 --> 01:13:34,185
all over the world,

1922
01:13:34,885 --> 01:13:36,725
but I haven't been doing that as much

1923
01:13:36,725 --> 01:13:39,844
recently because it makes less sense for people

1924
01:13:39,844 --> 01:13:41,925
to set up their own lab and more

1925
01:13:41,925 --> 01:13:44,539
sense for people to collect mushrooms and send

1926
01:13:44,539 --> 01:13:47,260
them into a centralized lab. Mhmm. And there's

1927
01:13:47,260 --> 01:13:49,340
a couple reasons for that, but one of

1928
01:13:49,340 --> 01:13:52,619
them is that this technology called Nanopore came

1929
01:13:52,619 --> 01:13:53,119
along.

1930
01:13:53,819 --> 01:13:55,520
And with Nanopore sequencing,

1931
01:13:56,435 --> 01:13:58,675
you it's a little DNA sequencer about the

1932
01:13:58,675 --> 01:14:00,614
size of a USB thumb drive,

1933
01:14:01,235 --> 01:14:02,775
and you can sequence

1934
01:14:03,155 --> 01:14:04,534
thousands of mushrooms

1935
01:14:05,155 --> 01:14:05,895
at once,

1936
01:14:06,355 --> 01:14:09,015
this little tiny device. And since the sequencer

1937
01:14:09,155 --> 01:14:11,574
is right there, you get your results.

1938
01:14:12,810 --> 01:14:14,810
You know, right you watch them come across

1939
01:14:14,810 --> 01:14:15,470
the screen.

1940
01:14:16,170 --> 01:14:17,689
But the thing is that it's kind of

1941
01:14:17,689 --> 01:14:19,930
expensive to run the device. It costs a

1942
01:14:19,930 --> 01:14:22,570
few $100 to run it, but each run,

1943
01:14:22,570 --> 01:14:25,289
you can sequence thousands of things. So all

1944
01:14:25,289 --> 01:14:27,824
of a sudden, the bottleneck is not the

1945
01:14:28,065 --> 01:14:31,505
sequencing, but the collections because, you know, nobody

1946
01:14:31,505 --> 01:14:34,385
has hundreds of thousands of different collections of

1947
01:14:34,385 --> 01:14:36,885
mushrooms laying around that need to be sequenced.

1948
01:14:37,025 --> 01:14:40,005
So, typically, what people will do now is

1949
01:14:40,399 --> 01:14:40,899
collect

1950
01:14:41,199 --> 01:14:43,439
mushrooms and document them in the field and

1951
01:14:43,439 --> 01:14:45,859
then just mail them all to a centralized

1952
01:14:46,079 --> 01:14:48,500
point, and then that person will run nanopore.

1953
01:14:49,280 --> 01:14:51,199
And that makes it a whole lot more

1954
01:14:51,199 --> 01:14:51,699
efficient,

1955
01:14:52,335 --> 01:14:54,095
And they that's how people are able to

1956
01:14:54,095 --> 01:14:57,315
sequence, you know, many thousands of different collections

1957
01:14:57,454 --> 01:14:58,195
per year.

1958
01:14:58,975 --> 01:15:01,534
Wow. That's fantastic. And and I understand, like,

1959
01:15:01,534 --> 01:15:03,215
you know, you can do your basic stuff

1960
01:15:03,215 --> 01:15:05,534
at home, but if if everybody's really wanting

1961
01:15:05,534 --> 01:15:07,449
the nanopore, well, then let's just let's just

1962
01:15:07,449 --> 01:15:10,489
put them all together also everybody bringing their

1963
01:15:10,489 --> 01:15:11,229
their DNA

1964
01:15:11,609 --> 01:15:14,090
to to these shops that have got this

1965
01:15:14,090 --> 01:15:14,590
technology

1966
01:15:15,050 --> 01:15:16,969
it helps keep them going too because we

1967
01:15:16,969 --> 01:15:18,489
we don't want them to go away because

1968
01:15:18,489 --> 01:15:19,949
people are doing a a

1969
01:15:20,925 --> 01:15:21,585
a lesser

1970
01:15:22,125 --> 01:15:24,685
variety test at home. We really do wanna

1971
01:15:24,685 --> 01:15:27,085
get as much as we can, all all

1972
01:15:27,085 --> 01:15:28,465
the data points we can.

1973
01:15:30,125 --> 01:15:32,524
Yeah. For sure. There's a couple of reasons

1974
01:15:32,524 --> 01:15:34,545
that I still sequence at home occasionally.

1975
01:15:35,350 --> 01:15:36,789
One of them is that I get results

1976
01:15:36,789 --> 01:15:38,310
pretty quick because if you send them out

1977
01:15:38,310 --> 01:15:39,909
to a lab, they put it together in

1978
01:15:39,909 --> 01:15:41,430
a big batch, and you might get your

1979
01:15:41,430 --> 01:15:43,750
results in a couple months. Whereas if you

1980
01:15:43,750 --> 01:15:45,110
do it at home, you can get your

1981
01:15:45,110 --> 01:15:46,570
results in the same day.

1982
01:15:46,949 --> 01:15:48,704
Also, if you send it into one of

1983
01:15:48,704 --> 01:15:50,704
these big labs, they're gonna be sequencing the

1984
01:15:50,704 --> 01:15:53,744
same gene, and that's def generally good because

1985
01:15:53,744 --> 01:15:56,725
it's generally just one gene called the ITS,

1986
01:15:56,864 --> 01:15:59,345
the internal transcribe spacer that you can use

1987
01:15:59,345 --> 01:16:01,925
to identify about 98% of fungi.

1988
01:16:02,239 --> 01:16:05,119
But, occasionally, you'll wanna sequence any gene, and

1989
01:16:05,119 --> 01:16:07,199
you can sequence any gene in the whole

1990
01:16:07,199 --> 01:16:07,699
genome

1991
01:16:08,159 --> 01:16:09,699
for about the same cost.

1992
01:16:10,079 --> 01:16:11,840
And so for the people that are doing

1993
01:16:11,840 --> 01:16:13,860
this at home, they'll be using a sequencing

1994
01:16:14,079 --> 01:16:15,939
technology called Sanger sequencing.

1995
01:16:16,814 --> 01:16:18,034
And with Sanger,

1996
01:16:18,574 --> 01:16:20,895
you just take the mushroom, grind it up,

1997
01:16:20,895 --> 01:16:22,734
put it into a PCR machine for a

1998
01:16:22,734 --> 01:16:25,534
couple hours with these two primers, and the

1999
01:16:25,534 --> 01:16:26,835
primers that you select

2000
01:16:27,295 --> 01:16:30,094
will choose which gene that ends up getting

2001
01:16:30,094 --> 01:16:30,594
sequenced.

2002
01:16:31,570 --> 01:16:33,829
So you can pick a primer for anything.

2003
01:16:34,530 --> 01:16:36,289
You know, you could take a human DNA

2004
01:16:36,289 --> 01:16:38,449
and then put a primer in there that

2005
01:16:38,449 --> 01:16:41,729
would sequence the gene for cancer or for

2006
01:16:41,729 --> 01:16:45,094
eye color or anything else. Or with mushrooms,

2007
01:16:45,154 --> 01:16:47,635
you can sequence the ITS gene if you

2008
01:16:47,635 --> 01:16:50,354
want, but you can also sequence much more

2009
01:16:50,354 --> 01:16:51,494
obscure genes,

2010
01:16:52,274 --> 01:16:55,314
you know, really anything. And so if I

2011
01:16:55,314 --> 01:16:57,715
want to do a multi gene analysis where

2012
01:16:57,715 --> 01:16:59,609
I'm analyzing several genes instead of just one,

2013
01:16:59,689 --> 01:17:01,949
instead of just one. I will run PCR

2014
01:17:02,010 --> 01:17:04,569
at home and sequence five or six different

2015
01:17:04,569 --> 01:17:06,270
genes of the same mushroom,

2016
01:17:06,649 --> 01:17:09,630
and then I can get that done with

2017
01:17:09,929 --> 01:17:11,069
the Sanger sequencing.

2018
01:17:11,895 --> 01:17:14,135
And the way Sanger works is that the

2019
01:17:14,135 --> 01:17:15,675
machine is pretty expensive,

2020
01:17:16,215 --> 01:17:18,135
but there's a lot of labs that do

2021
01:17:18,135 --> 01:17:19,514
it. So people typically

2022
01:17:20,054 --> 01:17:21,034
run PCR

2023
01:17:21,494 --> 01:17:23,814
at home, and that heats up the DNA

2024
01:17:23,814 --> 01:17:25,114
and cools it down

2025
01:17:25,460 --> 01:17:27,380
a whole bunch of times until it you

2026
01:17:27,380 --> 01:17:28,600
have a very concentrated

2027
01:17:28,979 --> 01:17:30,760
little droplet of DNA,

2028
01:17:31,219 --> 01:17:33,139
and then just drop it in the mail,

2029
01:17:33,380 --> 01:17:35,619
to a Sanger lab, and they typically charge

2030
01:17:35,619 --> 01:17:37,319
about $5 per sample.

2031
01:17:37,875 --> 01:17:40,354
And so when you're sequencing at home, you're

2032
01:17:40,354 --> 01:17:41,975
you're paying about $5

2033
01:17:42,114 --> 01:17:44,375
per mushroom that you wanna sequence.

2034
01:17:44,755 --> 01:17:47,074
And that that's fine for small runs, but

2035
01:17:47,074 --> 01:17:49,314
if you have thousands of mushrooms, it ends

2036
01:17:49,314 --> 01:17:51,814
up getting really expensive, and that's where Nanopore,

2037
01:17:52,354 --> 01:17:54,250
ends up being the the right way to

2038
01:17:54,250 --> 01:17:54,829
do it.

2039
01:17:55,289 --> 01:17:58,010
Right on. Alright. So let's go ahead and

2040
01:17:58,010 --> 01:17:59,929
take our second short break, and we'll be

2041
01:17:59,929 --> 01:18:02,010
right back. You are listening to Shaping Fire,

2042
01:18:02,010 --> 01:18:04,829
and my guest today is mycologist, Alan Rockefeller.

2043
01:18:08,225 --> 01:18:09,905
After you've caught up on the latest Shaping

2044
01:18:09,905 --> 01:18:11,744
Fire episodes, do you sometimes wish there was

2045
01:18:11,744 --> 01:18:14,225
more cannabis education available to learn? Well, we

2046
01:18:14,225 --> 01:18:16,704
got you. Shaping Fire has a fabulous YouTube

2047
01:18:16,704 --> 01:18:19,045
channel with content not found on the podcast.

2048
01:18:19,369 --> 01:18:21,609
When I attend conventions to speak or moderate

2049
01:18:21,609 --> 01:18:23,369
panels, I always record them and bring the

2050
01:18:23,369 --> 01:18:25,770
content home for you to watch. The Shango

2051
01:18:25,770 --> 01:18:28,510
Los YouTube channel has world class speakers including

2052
01:18:28,729 --> 01:18:30,989
Zoe Sigman's lecture, understanding your endocannabinoid

2053
01:18:31,449 --> 01:18:34,524
system. Kevin Jodrey of Wonderland Nursery talking about

2054
01:18:34,524 --> 01:18:36,625
breeding cannabis for the best terpene profile.

2055
01:18:37,085 --> 01:18:39,824
Frenchie Canole's lost art of the hashishin presentation.

2056
01:18:40,524 --> 01:18:43,824
Nicholas Mahmood on regenerative and polyculture cannabis growing.

2057
01:18:43,965 --> 01:18:46,204
Doctor Sunil Agarwal on the history of cannabis

2058
01:18:46,204 --> 01:18:49,010
medicine around the world. Eric Vlowski and Josh

2059
01:18:49,010 --> 01:18:50,230
Rutherford on solventless

2060
01:18:50,610 --> 01:18:51,110
extraction.

2061
01:18:51,489 --> 01:18:53,909
And Jeff Lowenfell's on the soil food web.

2062
01:18:54,130 --> 01:18:56,610
There are several presentations from doctor Ethan Russo

2063
01:18:56,610 --> 01:18:57,909
on terpenes and the endocannabinoid

2064
01:18:58,210 --> 01:19:00,449
system too. While there, be sure to check

2065
01:19:00,449 --> 01:19:03,005
out the three ten part shaping fire sessions

2066
01:19:03,545 --> 01:19:05,704
series. One with Kevin Jodrey, one with doctor

2067
01:19:05,704 --> 01:19:07,725
Ethan Russo, and one with Jeff Lowenfell's.

2068
01:19:08,185 --> 01:19:10,185
And even my own presentations on how to

2069
01:19:10,185 --> 01:19:12,505
approach finding your dream job in cannabis and

2070
01:19:12,505 --> 01:19:14,744
why we choose cannabis business even though the

2071
01:19:14,744 --> 01:19:16,939
risks are so high. As of today, there's

2072
01:19:16,939 --> 01:19:18,779
over 200 videos that you can check out

2073
01:19:18,779 --> 01:19:22,619
for free. So go to youtube.com/shangolows

2074
01:19:22,619 --> 01:19:24,239
or click on the link in the newsletter.

2075
01:19:27,500 --> 01:19:28,997
As consumers become more educated and regulations become

2076
01:19:28,997 --> 01:19:29,271
more demanding, it is increasingly important to avoid

2077
01:19:29,271 --> 01:19:30,074
the use of chemical

2078
01:19:40,235 --> 01:19:43,534
ornamental plant industry and today many cannabis cultivators

2079
01:19:43,675 --> 01:19:46,469
are moving from sprays and chemicals to beneficial

2080
01:19:46,529 --> 01:19:47,029
insects.

2081
01:19:47,729 --> 01:19:51,090
Natural Enemies has the beneficial insects, mites and

2082
01:19:51,090 --> 01:19:51,590
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2083
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2084
01:19:55,409 --> 01:19:58,130
need to partner with nature to defend your

2085
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2086
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2087
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a simple grow tent in your home, Natural

2088
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Enemies is ready to help answer your questions

2089
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2090
01:20:09,125 --> 01:20:11,145
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2091
01:20:12,140 --> 01:20:15,119
Natural Enemies was founded in the cannabis industry

2092
01:20:15,180 --> 01:20:18,000
and continues to provide cannabis specific guidance.

2093
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2094
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2095
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2096
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Kopert has assisted growers in identifying pests and

2097
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2098
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while providing healthy insects and mites that will

2099
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2100
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Since the nineteen nineties, Kopert has been a

2101
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2102
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2103
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2104
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2105
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2106
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2107
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2108
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2109
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2110
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Enemies is ready to help. Visit naturalenemies.com

2111
01:21:02,614 --> 01:21:03,114
today.

2112
01:21:06,140 --> 01:21:08,060
Sometimes the topics I wanna share with you

2113
01:21:08,060 --> 01:21:09,979
are far too brief for an entire shaping

2114
01:21:09,979 --> 01:21:10,719
fire episode.

2115
01:21:11,100 --> 01:21:13,439
In those instances, I post them to Instagram.

2116
01:21:13,819 --> 01:21:15,920
I invite you to follow my two Instagram

2117
01:21:15,979 --> 01:21:17,920
profiles and participate online.

2118
01:21:18,315 --> 01:21:21,114
The shaping fire Instagram has follow-up post to

2119
01:21:21,114 --> 01:21:22,255
shaping fire episodes,

2120
01:21:22,715 --> 01:21:26,175
growing and processing best practices, product trials, and

2121
01:21:26,235 --> 01:21:29,435
of course, gorgeous flower photos. The shango lows

2122
01:21:29,435 --> 01:21:32,335
Instagram follows my travels on cannabis garden tours,

2123
01:21:32,560 --> 01:21:35,060
my successes and failures in my own garden,

2124
01:21:35,359 --> 01:21:38,420
insights and best practices from personal grows everywhere,

2125
01:21:38,560 --> 01:21:40,659
and always gorgeous flower photos.

2126
01:21:41,039 --> 01:21:43,199
On both profiles, the emphasis is on sharing

2127
01:21:43,199 --> 01:21:44,399
what I've learned in a way that you

2128
01:21:44,399 --> 01:21:46,734
can replicate it in your own garden, your

2129
01:21:46,734 --> 01:21:49,795
own HashLab, or for your own cambidopathic health.

2130
01:21:50,015 --> 01:21:52,255
So I encourage you to follow at shaping

2131
01:21:52,255 --> 01:21:54,814
fire and at shango lows and join our

2132
01:21:54,814 --> 01:21:56,515
online community on Instagram.

2133
01:21:57,614 --> 01:21:59,935
Welcome back. You are listening to shaping fire.

2134
01:21:59,935 --> 01:22:02,449
I am your host, Shangelos, and my guest

2135
01:22:02,449 --> 01:22:04,550
today is mycologist, Alan Rockefeller.

2136
01:22:05,329 --> 01:22:07,489
So Alan, you know, we've been talking about

2137
01:22:07,489 --> 01:22:07,890
the,

2138
01:22:08,369 --> 01:22:11,670
value of not only DNA sequencing to understanding

2139
01:22:11,810 --> 01:22:14,715
what's in the mushrooms, but also the of

2140
01:22:14,715 --> 01:22:17,914
mushrooms and all of the important biochemicals and

2141
01:22:17,914 --> 01:22:20,074
and all the good healing that we can

2142
01:22:20,074 --> 01:22:21,835
bring out of these mushrooms. But but first,

2143
01:22:21,835 --> 01:22:23,675
we have to find them. You know, we

2144
01:22:23,675 --> 01:22:26,819
know that these second metabolites in mushrooms provide

2145
01:22:27,219 --> 01:22:28,119
important chemistry,

2146
01:22:29,060 --> 01:22:30,579
and and we know this at the very

2147
01:22:30,579 --> 01:22:34,579
least because single molecule psilocybin studies get really

2148
01:22:34,739 --> 01:22:36,659
seem to be so much less effective for

2149
01:22:36,659 --> 01:22:37,560
humans. So

2150
01:22:38,099 --> 01:22:40,439
what do you think we're going to find

2151
01:22:40,500 --> 01:22:41,024
the benefits

2152
01:22:53,585 --> 01:22:54,164
Yeah. So

2153
01:22:56,050 --> 01:22:57,909
Yeah. So psilocybin mushrooms

2154
01:22:58,289 --> 01:22:59,989
have a lot of different

2155
01:23:00,449 --> 01:23:02,869
chemicals in them that could be active.

2156
01:23:03,729 --> 01:23:05,909
You got about a dozen different tryptamines,

2157
01:23:06,369 --> 01:23:06,869
and

2158
01:23:07,454 --> 01:23:10,494
those, you know, psilocybin and psilocin are the

2159
01:23:10,494 --> 01:23:13,555
most well known, but you have the biocystine,

2160
01:23:14,335 --> 01:23:14,835
aruginacin,

2161
01:23:16,175 --> 01:23:18,175
and then a whole bunch of other ones

2162
01:23:18,175 --> 01:23:20,435
that are there in smaller quantities,

2163
01:23:21,055 --> 01:23:22,675
but some of these other ones

2164
01:23:23,010 --> 01:23:25,829
also bind to the five HT two receptors,

2165
01:23:26,689 --> 01:23:29,029
and so they probably influence

2166
01:23:29,409 --> 01:23:31,189
the the effect of of the mushrooms,

2167
01:23:32,130 --> 01:23:35,114
in their own way. And whenever you test

2168
01:23:35,435 --> 01:23:35,935
different

2169
01:23:36,315 --> 01:23:39,195
mushrooms, you'll find different ratios of all of

2170
01:23:39,195 --> 01:23:40,015
these chemicals.

2171
01:23:40,715 --> 01:23:43,275
So it's not like you find certain chemicals

2172
01:23:43,275 --> 01:23:45,595
that are in one mushroom or another, but

2173
01:23:45,595 --> 01:23:47,454
for example, psilocybe semilanceata

2174
01:23:47,835 --> 01:23:50,335
tends to have really high levels of biocysteine,

2175
01:23:51,449 --> 01:23:53,150
sometimes as much biocysteine

2176
01:23:53,530 --> 01:23:56,729
as psilocybin, whereas biocysteine is usually just a

2177
01:23:56,729 --> 01:23:57,229
trace

2178
01:23:58,409 --> 01:24:01,710
trace chemical in psilocybin mushrooms. So every psilocybin

2179
01:24:01,930 --> 01:24:02,989
mushroom has

2180
01:24:03,514 --> 01:24:04,175
some baeocystine,

2181
01:24:04,554 --> 01:24:06,875
but some much more than others. And all

2182
01:24:06,875 --> 01:24:09,914
these other alkaloids are the same way. So

2183
01:24:09,914 --> 01:24:12,795
with psilocybin, that one is not active on

2184
01:24:12,795 --> 01:24:15,210
its own, but when you ingest it,

2185
01:24:15,529 --> 01:24:18,489
then your liver knocks off the phosphorus atom

2186
01:24:18,489 --> 01:24:21,210
and it becomes silocin, and that does go

2187
01:24:21,210 --> 01:24:23,390
through the blood brain barrier. So that one,

2188
01:24:23,689 --> 01:24:25,390
that makes it become psychoactive.

2189
01:24:26,250 --> 01:24:28,635
And all of these other tryptamines also get

2190
01:24:28,795 --> 01:24:31,755
converted in your body into different molecules, and

2191
01:24:31,755 --> 01:24:32,654
some of those,

2192
01:24:33,594 --> 01:24:35,534
are as or even more psychoactive

2193
01:24:36,074 --> 01:24:36,974
than silosin.

2194
01:24:37,914 --> 01:24:40,074
Study came out just the other day that

2195
01:24:40,074 --> 01:24:41,295
they found that iruginacin

2196
01:24:41,675 --> 01:24:43,774
breaks down into four HO TMT,

2197
01:24:44,630 --> 01:24:47,030
and that one binds to the five HT

2198
01:24:47,030 --> 01:24:47,530
receptors,

2199
01:24:48,869 --> 01:24:49,689
quite strongly.

2200
01:24:50,069 --> 01:24:51,689
So that could definitely

2201
01:24:52,069 --> 01:24:52,569
influence,

2202
01:24:53,510 --> 01:24:55,109
the the effect that you get when you

2203
01:24:55,109 --> 01:24:55,930
eat a mushroom.

2204
01:24:56,550 --> 01:24:57,210
And then,

2205
01:24:57,989 --> 01:24:59,854
about seven years ago,

2206
01:25:00,234 --> 01:25:01,295
a lab in Germany,

2207
01:25:01,994 --> 01:25:05,135
the Hoffmannster lab, they found that

2208
01:25:05,595 --> 01:25:07,694
mushrooms contain beta carbolines.

2209
01:25:08,395 --> 01:25:10,715
And so those are molecules like harmine and

2210
01:25:10,715 --> 01:25:11,215
harmaline,

2211
01:25:11,675 --> 01:25:14,640
and those are famous because they are the

2212
01:25:14,640 --> 01:25:17,060
active ingredient in the Ayahuasca vine,

2213
01:25:17,439 --> 01:25:19,779
that make DMT orally active.

2214
01:25:20,479 --> 01:25:22,979
So it's kinda surprising to find these molecules

2215
01:25:23,199 --> 01:25:25,619
in mushrooms, and it turns out that Psilocybe

2216
01:25:25,840 --> 01:25:26,340
cubensis

2217
01:25:27,054 --> 01:25:29,854
has almost none of these molecules, those trace

2218
01:25:29,854 --> 01:25:30,354
amounts

2219
01:25:30,734 --> 01:25:33,234
in the fruiting body. But in the mycelium,

2220
01:25:33,934 --> 01:25:36,814
you have quite a bit more, and then

2221
01:25:36,814 --> 01:25:39,375
different species have completely different,

2222
01:25:40,239 --> 01:25:41,399
very different levels,

2223
01:25:41,840 --> 01:25:44,399
of of these beta carbolines. But what the

2224
01:25:44,399 --> 01:25:46,579
beta carbolines do is they,

2225
01:25:47,280 --> 01:25:49,520
knock out the MAO enzyme in your body,

2226
01:25:49,520 --> 01:25:50,659
which is enzyme

2227
01:25:51,199 --> 01:25:52,960
that gets rid of a lot of these

2228
01:25:52,960 --> 01:25:53,460
molecules.

2229
01:25:53,760 --> 01:25:56,885
So it makes the effects different and longer

2230
01:25:56,885 --> 01:25:57,385
lasting,

2231
01:25:58,244 --> 01:25:59,545
of a lot of these tryptamines.

2232
01:26:00,085 --> 01:26:01,784
And then even more recently,

2233
01:26:02,164 --> 01:26:04,024
it's been discovered that

2234
01:26:04,725 --> 01:26:07,784
psilocybin mushrooms have terpenes in them.

2235
01:26:08,289 --> 01:26:10,610
And so there's a whole bunch of different

2236
01:26:10,610 --> 01:26:11,110
terpenes.

2237
01:26:11,729 --> 01:26:14,130
Paper came out also from the Hofminster lab

2238
01:26:14,130 --> 01:26:16,530
a couple years ago, and they named some

2239
01:26:16,530 --> 01:26:17,350
of the terpenes,

2240
01:26:17,729 --> 01:26:20,149
after the mushrooms. So you have, like, cubine

2241
01:26:20,675 --> 01:26:22,675
is one that they first discovered in in

2242
01:26:22,675 --> 01:26:23,735
psilocybe cubensis,

2243
01:26:24,994 --> 01:26:25,975
but they have,

2244
01:26:26,994 --> 01:26:28,935
about 20 different terpenes

2245
01:26:29,475 --> 01:26:30,534
that they've detected,

2246
01:26:31,555 --> 01:26:34,195
and those are kind of a mystery as

2247
01:26:34,195 --> 01:26:35,095
to what they

2248
01:26:35,400 --> 01:26:38,520
do. They probably do influence the quality of

2249
01:26:38,520 --> 01:26:40,760
the trip in some way, but I think

2250
01:26:40,760 --> 01:26:42,600
people know a bit more about what they

2251
01:26:42,600 --> 01:26:45,239
do in cannabis than what they do in

2252
01:26:45,239 --> 01:26:48,199
mushrooms. Mhmm. And then if you just take

2253
01:26:48,199 --> 01:26:49,960
a mushroom and you run it through an

2254
01:26:49,960 --> 01:26:50,460
LCMS,

2255
01:26:51,585 --> 01:26:53,685
so LCMS is nickel chromatography

2256
01:26:54,064 --> 01:26:56,244
mass spec, and a good LCMS

2257
01:26:56,704 --> 01:26:58,385
could cost half $1,000,000,

2258
01:26:58,385 --> 01:26:59,604
so they're a bit expensive,

2259
01:27:00,465 --> 01:27:03,104
but it's a really cool device because you

2260
01:27:03,104 --> 01:27:05,104
can just put a mushroom in there and

2261
01:27:05,104 --> 01:27:06,564
see all of the chemicals

2262
01:27:06,890 --> 01:27:09,289
that are in there, and sometimes people are

2263
01:27:09,289 --> 01:27:10,569
able to get them at a pretty good

2264
01:27:10,569 --> 01:27:12,649
price from, like, a cannabis lab that shuts

2265
01:27:12,649 --> 01:27:15,689
down or something like that, and, you know,

2266
01:27:15,689 --> 01:27:17,609
that kind of equipment is what's used to

2267
01:27:17,609 --> 01:27:20,250
figure out what all these molecules are, but

2268
01:27:20,250 --> 01:27:22,034
you put any mushroom into an LC

2269
01:27:22,595 --> 01:27:25,655
and you will see hundreds of different peaks

2270
01:27:26,114 --> 01:27:27,635
on the graph. And some of them are

2271
01:27:27,635 --> 01:27:30,994
known molecules, and others are molecules that people

2272
01:27:30,994 --> 01:27:34,114
have never really interacted with before, and you

2273
01:27:34,114 --> 01:27:36,595
gotta concentrate them and use NMR to figure

2274
01:27:36,595 --> 01:27:38,850
out the exact structure of them.

2275
01:27:39,710 --> 01:27:43,010
But there's just all sorts of different opportunities

2276
01:27:43,390 --> 01:27:44,449
for these molecules

2277
01:27:44,909 --> 01:27:46,050
to to influence,

2278
01:27:46,670 --> 01:27:48,770
you know, different things in your body.

2279
01:27:49,229 --> 01:27:50,210
How sophisticated

2280
01:27:50,909 --> 01:27:54,125
is our list of these these secondary

2281
01:27:55,225 --> 01:27:55,725
biochemicals?

2282
01:27:57,064 --> 01:27:57,965
I can imagine

2283
01:27:58,265 --> 01:28:00,125
that that on one hand,

2284
01:28:01,145 --> 01:28:03,225
they are not as researched as we want

2285
01:28:03,225 --> 01:28:05,640
because there are so many mushrooms that we're

2286
01:28:05,640 --> 01:28:07,960
not aware of. So so this list would

2287
01:28:07,960 --> 01:28:09,420
have to be, you know,

2288
01:28:10,840 --> 01:28:13,420
adolescent as well. But at the same time,

2289
01:28:13,640 --> 01:28:15,979
it's also where I'm assuming that the pharmaceutical

2290
01:28:16,119 --> 01:28:18,360
companies are looking. And so if there is

2291
01:28:18,360 --> 01:28:20,774
money in research for this, it's probably at

2292
01:28:20,935 --> 01:28:21,435
these.

2293
01:28:21,895 --> 01:28:24,215
And but then there's a third hand, which

2294
01:28:24,215 --> 01:28:25,814
is these companies could very well be keep

2295
01:28:25,895 --> 01:28:28,534
keeping all this information private. So so what's

2296
01:28:28,534 --> 01:28:30,534
the state of the science? Are we are

2297
01:28:30,534 --> 01:28:32,054
are we seeing a pre,

2298
01:28:32,694 --> 01:28:33,194
comprehensive

2299
01:28:33,574 --> 01:28:36,479
list of these chemicals that are in these

2300
01:28:36,479 --> 01:28:39,139
mushrooms, or is it is it really early

2301
01:28:39,199 --> 01:28:41,699
and maybe even politically motivated?

2302
01:28:43,279 --> 01:28:44,420
It's pretty early.

2303
01:28:45,279 --> 01:28:47,619
There's all sorts of different molecules,

2304
01:28:47,920 --> 01:28:49,139
and the tryptamines

2305
01:28:49,679 --> 01:28:50,179
are

2306
01:28:50,744 --> 01:28:51,484
pretty well,

2307
01:28:52,425 --> 01:28:54,585
characterized and that we we know to look

2308
01:28:54,585 --> 01:28:56,664
for them. So even somebody that just has

2309
01:28:56,664 --> 01:28:57,484
an HPLC

2310
01:28:58,104 --> 01:29:00,524
will have reference standards for the different tryptamines,

2311
01:29:00,744 --> 01:29:01,965
and they will be able

2312
01:29:02,344 --> 01:29:03,564
to figure out

2313
01:29:03,944 --> 01:29:07,449
what, which tryptamines they have. But some of

2314
01:29:07,449 --> 01:29:08,350
these other molecules,

2315
01:29:09,289 --> 01:29:10,889
you know, people don't really know to look

2316
01:29:10,889 --> 01:29:11,789
for them, and,

2317
01:29:13,130 --> 01:29:15,529
we also don't understand what the effects are

2318
01:29:15,529 --> 01:29:16,909
of these different tryptamines.

2319
01:29:19,054 --> 01:29:21,135
Right. And and what their effects are is

2320
01:29:21,135 --> 01:29:22,734
kind of at the at the corner of

2321
01:29:22,734 --> 01:29:24,895
what we're what, you know, why everybody's looking

2322
01:29:24,895 --> 01:29:26,675
in it for for future medicine.

2323
01:29:28,015 --> 01:29:29,475
One of the questions that,

2324
01:29:30,414 --> 01:29:32,550
always occurs to me is if the mushroom

2325
01:29:32,550 --> 01:29:33,369
makes psilocybin

2326
01:29:33,750 --> 01:29:35,689
and then we convert it into

2327
01:29:36,070 --> 01:29:36,570
psilocin,

2328
01:29:37,590 --> 01:29:40,390
and then also psilocin occurs in the mushroom

2329
01:29:40,390 --> 01:29:42,470
and in the wild, do we know why

2330
01:29:43,350 --> 01:29:45,345
here. We're back to why again. Do we

2331
01:29:45,345 --> 01:29:48,145
know why or or, see any reason for

2332
01:29:48,145 --> 01:29:51,045
the for the mushroom to also have silosin?

2333
01:29:51,105 --> 01:29:53,105
Because, like, I understand that if if if

2334
01:29:53,105 --> 01:29:53,605
we,

2335
01:29:54,545 --> 01:29:55,045
dephosphate

2336
01:29:55,744 --> 01:29:57,505
it when we eat it, that's one thing.

2337
01:29:57,505 --> 01:29:59,744
That's something that our our our body is

2338
01:29:59,744 --> 01:30:02,559
doing. But to have both the

2339
01:30:02,939 --> 01:30:04,239
phosphated and unphosphated

2340
01:30:04,619 --> 01:30:05,119
version

2341
01:30:05,819 --> 01:30:08,880
in the mushroom, that seems different to me.

2342
01:30:09,260 --> 01:30:11,679
It's like it's partially digested for us.

2343
01:30:12,505 --> 01:30:13,965
It's a really good question.

2344
01:30:15,225 --> 01:30:17,145
And, you know, nobody knows why it's in

2345
01:30:17,145 --> 01:30:18,905
there, but people have been trying to figure

2346
01:30:18,905 --> 01:30:20,585
that out for a long time. And I

2347
01:30:20,585 --> 01:30:22,765
think the person that's done more research

2348
01:30:23,145 --> 01:30:26,460
than anybody else in that realm is doctor

2349
01:30:26,600 --> 01:30:29,560
Jason Slott, and he's at the University of

2350
01:30:29,560 --> 01:30:30,060
Ohio.

2351
01:30:31,000 --> 01:30:32,859
Really cool guy, great teacher,

2352
01:30:33,399 --> 01:30:36,119
and he has written a bunch of papers

2353
01:30:36,119 --> 01:30:38,939
that speculate why these mushrooms might have psilocybin.

2354
01:30:39,914 --> 01:30:40,414
And,

2355
01:30:41,034 --> 01:30:42,795
you know, it's really hard to come to

2356
01:30:42,795 --> 01:30:45,595
a a an exact conclusion, but there's a

2357
01:30:45,595 --> 01:30:47,854
lot of observations that we can make.

2358
01:30:48,395 --> 01:30:49,295
So the psilocybin

2359
01:30:49,595 --> 01:30:52,475
itself is a very stable molecule and doesn't

2360
01:30:52,475 --> 01:30:54,574
tend to break down, but then these mushrooms

2361
01:30:54,789 --> 01:30:55,609
have enzymes

2362
01:30:56,310 --> 01:30:57,210
that dephosphorylate

2363
01:30:57,750 --> 01:30:58,409
the psilocybin,

2364
01:30:58,710 --> 01:31:01,350
so they just break the phosphorus off. And

2365
01:31:01,350 --> 01:31:03,770
then it becomes silosin, and silosin

2366
01:31:04,149 --> 01:31:06,569
is much less stable.

2367
01:31:07,845 --> 01:31:08,345
And,

2368
01:31:09,284 --> 01:31:11,605
those then there's more enzymes that take that

2369
01:31:11,605 --> 01:31:12,105
silosin

2370
01:31:12,485 --> 01:31:16,244
and polymerize it into these long chains, and

2371
01:31:16,244 --> 01:31:16,725
those,

2372
01:31:17,045 --> 01:31:18,025
long polymers

2373
01:31:18,805 --> 01:31:20,185
have different colors.

2374
01:31:20,565 --> 01:31:22,519
So that's where you get your blue staining,

2375
01:31:22,519 --> 01:31:24,859
but you can also get pink and browns,

2376
01:31:26,039 --> 01:31:28,139
in those silosin polymers.

2377
01:31:29,159 --> 01:31:32,039
And so one theory is that the, the

2378
01:31:32,039 --> 01:31:33,579
idea is that when you have

2379
01:31:34,135 --> 01:31:36,454
the, well, another thing about these is that

2380
01:31:36,454 --> 01:31:38,614
if you have psilocin in a mushroom, there's

2381
01:31:38,614 --> 01:31:40,074
other enzymes that rephosphorylate

2382
01:31:40,534 --> 01:31:42,954
it and turn it back into psilocybin.

2383
01:31:43,335 --> 01:31:46,295
So that's why mushrooms are not blue when

2384
01:31:46,295 --> 01:31:47,975
they're just sitting there, but then when you

2385
01:31:47,975 --> 01:31:48,954
damage them,

2386
01:31:49,440 --> 01:31:52,020
these enzymes kick in, and they will,

2387
01:31:53,039 --> 01:31:53,539
dephosphorylate

2388
01:31:54,239 --> 01:31:55,060
the psilocybin

2389
01:31:55,440 --> 01:31:58,079
and then polymerize them. So that changes the

2390
01:31:58,079 --> 01:31:58,579
color

2391
01:31:58,880 --> 01:32:01,680
of the mushroom. So this whole pathway seems

2392
01:32:01,680 --> 01:32:03,925
to be very intentional. There's a whole lot

2393
01:32:03,925 --> 01:32:06,904
of enzymes that are working together to create

2394
01:32:07,364 --> 01:32:08,744
this whole chemical pathway

2395
01:32:09,364 --> 01:32:10,185
and to

2396
01:32:11,284 --> 01:32:14,904
kinda change the molecules around. So it's definitely

2397
01:32:15,685 --> 01:32:18,344
not random, not an accident, but

2398
01:32:18,710 --> 01:32:21,350
why and what they are doing is is

2399
01:32:21,350 --> 01:32:23,909
more difficult. But, you know, one reason that

2400
01:32:23,909 --> 01:32:26,649
you might wanna turn blue is to absorb

2401
01:32:26,710 --> 01:32:29,030
more light and more heat. So, like, if

2402
01:32:29,030 --> 01:32:31,510
mushrooms are about to freeze and they start

2403
01:32:31,510 --> 01:32:33,645
to get frost, then that will break the

2404
01:32:33,645 --> 01:32:37,104
cells and cause the blue staining, which will,

2405
01:32:38,045 --> 01:32:39,984
you know, turn blue and absorb

2406
01:32:40,364 --> 01:32:41,185
more heat,

2407
01:32:41,885 --> 01:32:43,404
from the light and, you know, heat the

2408
01:32:43,404 --> 01:32:45,479
mushroom up a little bit. So that is

2409
01:32:45,640 --> 01:32:47,659
possible, but it's for the blue color.

2410
01:32:48,279 --> 01:32:50,460
Another idea is that these polymers

2411
01:32:51,239 --> 01:32:54,359
will piss off insects that are trying to

2412
01:32:54,359 --> 01:32:55,500
feed on the mushrooms,

2413
01:32:55,960 --> 01:32:57,720
although that doesn't make a whole lot of

2414
01:32:57,720 --> 01:33:00,465
sense because mushrooms benefit from getting eaten by

2415
01:33:00,465 --> 01:33:02,945
insects and animals because they spread the spores

2416
01:33:02,945 --> 01:33:04,485
around a lot more effectively

2417
01:33:05,265 --> 01:33:06,085
than the wind.

2418
01:33:06,864 --> 01:33:08,704
So there's a whole lot of different theories

2419
01:33:08,704 --> 01:33:09,204
here,

2420
01:33:09,585 --> 01:33:12,545
but it's it's definitely super interesting. Yeah. It

2421
01:33:12,545 --> 01:33:13,524
is super interesting.

2422
01:33:13,979 --> 01:33:15,439
And I've heard some people,

2423
01:33:15,899 --> 01:33:17,840
suggest that these these,

2424
01:33:18,779 --> 01:33:20,460
so let me check my term with you.

2425
01:33:20,460 --> 01:33:21,920
Do you like this term secondary

2426
01:33:22,220 --> 01:33:25,520
metabolites for referring to these these other biochemicals?

2427
01:33:27,284 --> 01:33:30,025
Yeah. I think it's pretty used pretty commonly,

2428
01:33:30,405 --> 01:33:33,284
all through all throughout biology. Alright. Good. So

2429
01:33:33,284 --> 01:33:34,744
these secondary metabolites,

2430
01:33:35,364 --> 01:33:38,324
I've read some suggestion that that perhaps they

2431
01:33:38,324 --> 01:33:39,864
and also psilocybin

2432
01:33:40,244 --> 01:33:41,939
increase under stress.

2433
01:33:42,960 --> 01:33:45,039
Do you think that is true for both

2434
01:33:45,039 --> 01:33:48,399
psilocybin and the other novel secondaries? And are

2435
01:33:48,399 --> 01:33:50,880
there any insights to be adopted by home

2436
01:33:50,880 --> 01:33:52,340
cultivators in this understanding?

2437
01:33:54,045 --> 01:33:56,125
I think it's true for cactus that when

2438
01:33:56,125 --> 01:33:58,784
cacti get pissed off, they make more mescaline,

2439
01:33:58,925 --> 01:34:01,005
and that makes a lot of sense because

2440
01:34:01,005 --> 01:34:02,064
a lot of these alkaloids,

2441
01:34:03,564 --> 01:34:06,364
kind of, like, defend against predators and and

2442
01:34:06,364 --> 01:34:07,425
things like that.

2443
01:34:07,840 --> 01:34:10,399
But I don't know that it's really true

2444
01:34:10,399 --> 01:34:13,039
for mushrooms. I think if you anger a

2445
01:34:13,039 --> 01:34:14,180
mushroom somehow,

2446
01:34:14,560 --> 01:34:16,719
maybe let you dry it out or bruise

2447
01:34:16,719 --> 01:34:19,460
it or something, they don't really make more

2448
01:34:19,760 --> 01:34:20,260
psilocybin

2449
01:34:20,560 --> 01:34:22,020
in response to that.

2450
01:34:22,595 --> 01:34:24,835
So I I think it's more of a

2451
01:34:24,835 --> 01:34:27,095
plant thing, and that makes sense just because,

2452
01:34:27,314 --> 01:34:29,655
you know, the mushrooms are not trying to

2453
01:34:30,114 --> 01:34:33,235
fend off predators. Mhmm. Mhmm. Predators are mostly

2454
01:34:33,235 --> 01:34:33,895
their friends

2455
01:34:34,195 --> 01:34:36,135
because they're they're actually helping. Yeah.

2456
01:34:38,420 --> 01:34:40,739
So similarly I'd like to get your thoughts

2457
01:34:40,739 --> 01:34:43,239
on on the wild versus cultivated

2458
01:34:44,260 --> 01:34:46,739
mushroom debate you know we've already established that

2459
01:34:46,739 --> 01:34:50,234
the metabolites secondary to psilocybin are important Do

2460
01:34:50,234 --> 01:34:52,875
you find that the wild versions of these

2461
01:34:52,875 --> 01:34:54,814
mushrooms have more potency

2462
01:34:55,354 --> 01:34:56,175
and variety

2463
01:34:56,954 --> 01:34:57,454
than,

2464
01:34:58,234 --> 01:35:01,435
than cultivated mushrooms that maybe, you know, they're

2465
01:35:01,435 --> 01:35:03,835
not engaging with the environment in the same

2466
01:35:03,835 --> 01:35:04,335
way?

2467
01:35:06,409 --> 01:35:06,909
Typically,

2468
01:35:07,210 --> 01:35:10,729
yes, but probably not because they're wild. Mhmm.

2469
01:35:10,889 --> 01:35:12,810
It's just that when you cultivate, you're always

2470
01:35:12,810 --> 01:35:14,189
growing the same species,

2471
01:35:15,130 --> 01:35:16,090
99%

2472
01:35:16,090 --> 01:35:19,725
of the time. And so that's, kinda limits

2473
01:35:19,725 --> 01:35:22,604
the possibilities there. Whereas in the wild, you

2474
01:35:22,604 --> 01:35:24,225
have so many different species,

2475
01:35:25,085 --> 01:35:27,085
that you're collecting, so there's a lot more

2476
01:35:27,085 --> 01:35:28,625
chance to get different molecules.

2477
01:35:29,725 --> 01:35:32,609
But, also, you know, Psilocybe cubensis is not

2478
01:35:32,609 --> 01:35:34,710
a particularly potent mushroom.

2479
01:35:35,569 --> 01:35:37,569
At least most of most of the strains,

2480
01:35:37,569 --> 01:35:40,449
you get about, on an average cube, about

2481
01:35:40,449 --> 01:35:41,750
point 6%

2482
01:35:41,890 --> 01:35:43,430
alkaloids by weight.

2483
01:35:44,204 --> 01:35:46,145
Whereas, you know, some of these other mushrooms,

2484
01:35:46,204 --> 01:35:48,225
like the wild ones that people find,

2485
01:35:49,005 --> 01:35:52,545
often have one to 2% or even more,

2486
01:35:53,404 --> 01:35:55,564
alkaloids, so the wild ones tend to be

2487
01:35:55,564 --> 01:35:58,929
stronger, but there's also very weak wild ones.

2488
01:35:59,250 --> 01:36:00,229
Some of the painiolus,

2489
01:36:01,409 --> 01:36:03,569
are are very weak, and you would have

2490
01:36:03,569 --> 01:36:05,170
to eat a whole lot of them to

2491
01:36:05,170 --> 01:36:07,029
to really figure out anything

2492
01:36:07,409 --> 01:36:08,630
or really feel anything.

2493
01:36:09,795 --> 01:36:11,175
But you don't really

2494
01:36:11,635 --> 01:36:12,935
notice different effects

2495
01:36:13,314 --> 01:36:16,454
from the same species growing indoors or outdoors,

2496
01:36:16,675 --> 01:36:19,635
but that's so hard to quantify because even

2497
01:36:19,635 --> 01:36:21,954
the exact same batch of mushrooms, if you

2498
01:36:21,954 --> 01:36:24,114
were to powder, homogenize it, and take it

2499
01:36:24,114 --> 01:36:27,050
on different days, you would notice very different

2500
01:36:27,050 --> 01:36:27,550
effects

2501
01:36:27,930 --> 01:36:30,329
just because of all of, you know, they're

2502
01:36:30,329 --> 01:36:32,569
interacting with your body. They're interacting with all

2503
01:36:32,569 --> 01:36:34,970
the chemicals in your brain, and maybe a

2504
01:36:34,970 --> 01:36:36,590
whole lot of stuff in your subconscious

2505
01:36:37,930 --> 01:36:40,750
has a big effect on what you experience.

2506
01:36:41,854 --> 01:36:43,775
So, you know, when you have even the

2507
01:36:43,775 --> 01:36:46,335
same batch having such different effects on different

2508
01:36:46,335 --> 01:36:48,675
days, that makes it really hard to quantify

2509
01:36:49,375 --> 01:36:50,835
what the differences are.

2510
01:36:51,854 --> 01:36:53,614
And, you know, what really needs to be

2511
01:36:53,614 --> 01:36:55,454
done is people need to try all of

2512
01:36:55,454 --> 01:36:56,114
the alkaloids

2513
01:36:56,820 --> 01:36:57,560
from fungi

2514
01:36:58,180 --> 01:36:58,680
separately

2515
01:36:59,460 --> 01:36:59,960
and,

2516
01:37:01,140 --> 01:37:02,359
in different combinations.

2517
01:37:03,300 --> 01:37:06,420
And, you know, then to to really score

2518
01:37:06,420 --> 01:37:08,340
that, you would kinda have to have, like,

2519
01:37:08,340 --> 01:37:10,579
a double blind mushroom party where you had

2520
01:37:10,579 --> 01:37:11,640
hundreds of people

2521
01:37:11,954 --> 01:37:13,175
all getting different,

2522
01:37:14,034 --> 01:37:15,494
different kinds of mushrooms.

2523
01:37:15,795 --> 01:37:17,474
And then at the end, you can give

2524
01:37:17,474 --> 01:37:19,314
them a survey where they score a whole

2525
01:37:19,314 --> 01:37:21,234
bunch of things from one to 10, then

2526
01:37:21,234 --> 01:37:23,795
you can crunch the numbers and maybe figure

2527
01:37:23,795 --> 01:37:24,534
out something,

2528
01:37:25,154 --> 01:37:27,859
about the different effects of the different molecules.

2529
01:37:27,920 --> 01:37:29,920
But I don't think ever anyone's ever done

2530
01:37:29,920 --> 01:37:31,840
this on a large enough scale to make

2531
01:37:31,840 --> 01:37:32,659
it statistically

2532
01:37:33,119 --> 01:37:33,619
significant.

2533
01:37:34,800 --> 01:37:36,000
It sounds like it would be a very

2534
01:37:36,000 --> 01:37:38,800
popular study, though. Would be no no problem

2535
01:37:38,800 --> 01:37:39,699
getting volunteers.

2536
01:37:41,114 --> 01:37:42,795
Yeah. I think it's it's the kind of

2537
01:37:42,795 --> 01:37:44,875
thing you could do in in somewhere like

2538
01:37:44,875 --> 01:37:45,375
Colorado.

2539
01:37:45,755 --> 01:37:46,574
Mhmm. Mhmm.

2540
01:37:46,954 --> 01:37:49,114
Alright. So during the break, Alan, you and

2541
01:37:49,114 --> 01:37:51,854
I were talking about these these secondary metabolites

2542
01:37:52,729 --> 01:37:54,670
and and their value

2543
01:37:54,970 --> 01:37:57,369
in medicine to people. And and we started

2544
01:37:57,369 --> 01:38:00,110
doing some of the comparisons between the cannabis

2545
01:38:00,170 --> 01:38:02,670
plant and and the mushroom medicine.

2546
01:38:03,289 --> 01:38:05,310
And you started talking about

2547
01:38:06,685 --> 01:38:09,024
the potential for mushroom medicine,

2548
01:38:09,725 --> 01:38:12,204
seems like it would be even greater than

2549
01:38:12,204 --> 01:38:14,385
cannabis because more people,

2550
01:38:17,164 --> 01:38:19,164
you were suggesting, might be able to get

2551
01:38:19,164 --> 01:38:21,220
benefit from mushrooms. I don't wanna put the

2552
01:38:21,220 --> 01:38:23,060
the words in your mouth, but you clearly

2553
01:38:23,060 --> 01:38:24,579
have thought about this a lot. Would you

2554
01:38:24,579 --> 01:38:26,500
would you go back into that for everybody?

2555
01:38:26,500 --> 01:38:28,260
Because where you're going with it was very

2556
01:38:28,260 --> 01:38:28,760
interesting.

2557
01:38:30,180 --> 01:38:32,520
Yeah. So everyone's heard of medical cannabis,

2558
01:38:32,864 --> 01:38:36,244
and cannabis definitely does help some people.

2559
01:38:36,704 --> 01:38:37,204
But

2560
01:38:38,145 --> 01:38:41,425
I think most people who use cannabis just

2561
01:38:41,425 --> 01:38:43,185
use it for the effects and and don't

2562
01:38:43,185 --> 01:38:45,845
really need the medicinal benefit from it.

2563
01:38:46,890 --> 01:38:48,350
Whereas with mushrooms,

2564
01:38:48,729 --> 01:38:51,770
I think the medicinal effects are very different,

2565
01:38:51,770 --> 01:38:54,010
and they tend to treat things that a

2566
01:38:54,010 --> 01:38:55,789
whole lot more people have.

2567
01:38:56,329 --> 01:38:58,109
And so I think everybody

2568
01:38:58,649 --> 01:38:59,149
has

2569
01:38:59,485 --> 01:39:02,465
at least some sort of depression or addiction

2570
01:39:02,604 --> 01:39:05,025
in their life, and those are two things

2571
01:39:05,565 --> 01:39:06,065
that,

2572
01:39:07,164 --> 01:39:09,405
that mushrooms really help a lot with. And

2573
01:39:09,405 --> 01:39:11,744
it's kinda interesting how it works because

2574
01:39:12,239 --> 01:39:14,420
depression is not well understood

2575
01:39:15,199 --> 01:39:16,099
by scientists,

2576
01:39:16,639 --> 01:39:18,739
but it seems that the psilocybin

2577
01:39:19,439 --> 01:39:22,099
turns off part of the brain

2578
01:39:22,399 --> 01:39:24,975
that causes depression. So people

2579
01:39:25,515 --> 01:39:28,154
might feel some depression, and then they will

2580
01:39:28,154 --> 01:39:29,295
take some psilocybin,

2581
01:39:29,755 --> 01:39:30,255
and

2582
01:39:31,435 --> 01:39:33,835
they don't feel you know, they they feel

2583
01:39:33,835 --> 01:39:36,475
all very trippy, and they feel very different

2584
01:39:36,475 --> 01:39:37,994
for a few hours, but then they wake

2585
01:39:37,994 --> 01:39:39,994
up the next day, and the depression is

2586
01:39:39,994 --> 01:39:41,270
just sort of lifted.

2587
01:39:42,210 --> 01:39:42,710
And

2588
01:39:43,489 --> 01:39:47,189
it's, an effect that usually lasts for months,

2589
01:39:47,489 --> 01:39:48,710
sometimes years,

2590
01:39:49,409 --> 01:39:51,970
and that's a whole lot better than a

2591
01:39:51,970 --> 01:39:53,270
pharmaceutical antidepressant

2592
01:39:53,649 --> 01:39:54,869
because with these pharmaceuticals,

2593
01:39:55,329 --> 01:39:57,454
they have all sorts of side effects and

2594
01:39:57,454 --> 01:39:59,234
you have to take the pill every day.

2595
01:39:59,774 --> 01:40:02,494
And if you stop taking it abruptly, you

2596
01:40:02,494 --> 01:40:05,375
can have, you know, really bad depression come

2597
01:40:05,375 --> 01:40:08,094
back. Whereas, you know, with mushrooms, just taking

2598
01:40:08,094 --> 01:40:09,779
them a few times a year will,

2599
01:40:10,420 --> 01:40:13,460
often take take care of people's depression in

2600
01:40:13,460 --> 01:40:15,079
a much more natural and

2601
01:40:15,460 --> 01:40:17,000
much healthier way,

2602
01:40:17,619 --> 01:40:19,079
than a lot of those SSRI

2603
01:40:20,099 --> 01:40:20,599
medicines.

2604
01:40:21,300 --> 01:40:23,994
And certainly without a whole lot less side

2605
01:40:23,994 --> 01:40:26,015
effects as well because those SSRIs,

2606
01:40:26,315 --> 01:40:27,775
you know, if you can even

2607
01:40:28,395 --> 01:40:30,095
convince somebody that they work,

2608
01:40:30,555 --> 01:40:32,815
most of them have got pretty pretty life,

2609
01:40:33,914 --> 01:40:34,414
dysfunctioning

2610
01:40:35,114 --> 01:40:37,914
side effects, which, you know, microdosing is that's

2611
01:40:37,914 --> 01:40:38,735
very uncommon.

2612
01:40:40,289 --> 01:40:43,029
Yeah. Exactly. And it's sort of the opposite

2613
01:40:43,090 --> 01:40:45,810
with mushrooms and that, you know, people take

2614
01:40:45,810 --> 01:40:49,189
mushrooms and they feel like they're more into

2615
01:40:49,489 --> 01:40:52,609
life. They're more interested in connecting with other

2616
01:40:52,609 --> 01:40:53,109
people.

2617
01:40:54,215 --> 01:40:56,534
I find sometimes in my own life, I'll

2618
01:40:56,534 --> 01:40:58,854
get kind of into a rut where I'm

2619
01:40:58,854 --> 01:41:00,935
just sort of wasting my time and not

2620
01:41:00,935 --> 01:41:03,675
really making really good use of my time.

2621
01:41:03,975 --> 01:41:05,274
And if I take mushrooms,

2622
01:41:05,734 --> 01:41:08,029
then I will wake up the next day,

2623
01:41:08,029 --> 01:41:09,649
and I will just be

2624
01:41:10,029 --> 01:41:12,029
like, the the light seems a little brighter,

2625
01:41:12,029 --> 01:41:13,710
and I have more energy, and I'll just

2626
01:41:13,710 --> 01:41:15,949
start working on stuff that I I should

2627
01:41:15,949 --> 01:41:18,029
have done. And the stuff that I'm working

2628
01:41:18,029 --> 01:41:19,869
on, it feels really fun to work on,

2629
01:41:19,869 --> 01:41:21,810
and I'll and I'll stay in that mindset

2630
01:41:22,564 --> 01:41:23,945
for weeks, months.

2631
01:41:25,204 --> 01:41:27,845
And, you know, that's something super valuable. And,

2632
01:41:27,845 --> 01:41:29,364
you know, one of the worst things we

2633
01:41:29,364 --> 01:41:31,925
can do as humans is to waste our

2634
01:41:31,925 --> 01:41:34,324
time and not make very good use of

2635
01:41:34,324 --> 01:41:36,664
our time, and the mushrooms really

2636
01:41:37,050 --> 01:41:39,310
seem to help that quite a bit.

2637
01:41:39,930 --> 01:41:42,090
Here. Here. You know, one of the things

2638
01:41:42,090 --> 01:41:44,329
that, I vibe out of the mushroom scene

2639
01:41:44,329 --> 01:41:45,770
that I haven't felt in a while is

2640
01:41:45,770 --> 01:41:47,770
it feels a lot like some of the

2641
01:41:47,770 --> 01:41:49,869
earlier days of cannabis medicine.

2642
01:41:50,445 --> 01:41:52,864
You know, as as as cannabis has become,

2643
01:41:53,564 --> 01:41:55,744
more normalized and more commoditized,

2644
01:41:56,204 --> 01:41:58,364
a lot of the medical people have left

2645
01:41:58,364 --> 01:42:00,364
and and a lot of the heart has

2646
01:42:00,364 --> 01:42:02,284
left, and it's it's just becoming a lot

2647
01:42:02,284 --> 01:42:04,590
more like pushing pushing widgets out.

2648
01:42:05,069 --> 01:42:06,989
And and and as we were talking about

2649
01:42:06,989 --> 01:42:09,069
earlier, there's still not really a lot of

2650
01:42:09,069 --> 01:42:12,590
mushroom in mushroom research and even even necessarily

2651
01:42:12,590 --> 01:42:13,729
teaching about mushrooms.

2652
01:42:14,270 --> 01:42:16,750
And it seems to be, it seems still

2653
01:42:16,750 --> 01:42:19,015
to hold a lot of that heart because

2654
01:42:19,015 --> 01:42:21,274
the people who are in it are

2655
01:42:21,574 --> 01:42:24,154
are are in it for more heart reasons

2656
01:42:24,215 --> 01:42:27,015
than spreadsheet reasons. And, you know, I understand

2657
01:42:27,015 --> 01:42:27,335
that,

2658
01:42:28,055 --> 01:42:28,715
you know,

2659
01:42:29,494 --> 01:42:30,635
I'm a little jaded

2660
01:42:31,015 --> 01:42:31,701
and I'll and I'll own that. But, I

2661
01:42:31,701 --> 01:42:31,777
think that the the mushroom scene really feels

2662
01:42:31,777 --> 01:42:32,954
like it's, still steeped in,

2663
01:42:45,539 --> 01:42:47,085
several reasons for that.

2664
01:42:47,564 --> 01:42:48,944
One of them is just the pharmacological

2665
01:42:49,404 --> 01:42:52,204
effects of the mushrooms themselves. They kind of,

2666
01:42:52,204 --> 01:42:54,604
you know, make you more in tune with

2667
01:42:54,604 --> 01:42:58,704
nature and with life and your purpose and

2668
01:42:58,844 --> 01:43:00,685
all of that. And then the the other

2669
01:43:00,685 --> 01:43:02,850
thing is just the capitalism aspect.

2670
01:43:03,250 --> 01:43:05,670
You know, it's very hard to make money

2671
01:43:06,050 --> 01:43:06,949
doing mushrooms.

2672
01:43:07,649 --> 01:43:08,130
So,

2673
01:43:08,449 --> 01:43:12,449
even growing psilocybin mushrooms, they're not really that

2674
01:43:12,449 --> 01:43:12,949
profitable.

2675
01:43:13,729 --> 01:43:15,729
And so the people that are really into

2676
01:43:15,729 --> 01:43:16,229
mushrooms

2677
01:43:16,689 --> 01:43:17,989
are into it because

2678
01:43:18,594 --> 01:43:22,194
they are just really interested in nature and

2679
01:43:22,194 --> 01:43:25,234
and mushrooms themselves. They have more pure motives

2680
01:43:25,234 --> 01:43:27,954
whereas a lot of people grow weed, for

2681
01:43:27,954 --> 01:43:29,895
for the money. Mhmm. Mhmm.

2682
01:43:30,369 --> 01:43:31,890
So I've got I've got these next four

2683
01:43:31,890 --> 01:43:33,969
questions. They're kinda non sequiturs. They didn't really

2684
01:43:33,969 --> 01:43:35,569
fit anywhere else in the show, but they

2685
01:43:35,569 --> 01:43:37,649
are things that that I'm either asked all

2686
01:43:37,649 --> 01:43:39,569
the time or I you have come up

2687
01:43:39,569 --> 01:43:41,489
on other shows and we didn't have answers.

2688
01:43:41,489 --> 01:43:43,569
And so so the first one is is,

2689
01:43:44,585 --> 01:43:45,085
it's,

2690
01:43:45,704 --> 01:43:48,264
we know that psilocybin mushrooms well, no. No.

2691
01:43:48,264 --> 01:43:50,664
Wrong one. Sorry. So the enigma mushroom is

2692
01:43:50,664 --> 01:43:52,425
what I wanna talk about. The the enigma

2693
01:43:52,425 --> 01:43:54,744
mushroom looks like ribbons, right, or even kinda

2694
01:43:54,744 --> 01:43:57,005
like the human brain when it's grown.

2695
01:43:57,610 --> 01:43:59,770
And it's become really famous recently, but it

2696
01:43:59,770 --> 01:44:02,890
doesn't produce spores at all. And so my

2697
01:44:02,890 --> 01:44:04,430
question for you is from a biological

2698
01:44:04,810 --> 01:44:05,310
standpoint,

2699
01:44:05,610 --> 01:44:08,090
like, what kind of mutation is happening here,

2700
01:44:08,090 --> 01:44:09,710
and would it ever even

2701
01:44:10,114 --> 01:44:12,114
survive in the wild? It kinda feels like

2702
01:44:12,114 --> 01:44:13,574
a a lab mutation

2703
01:44:14,275 --> 01:44:15,655
that that needs

2704
01:44:16,034 --> 01:44:18,354
to be held needs to be held up

2705
01:44:18,354 --> 01:44:20,534
to survive with crutches or else it wouldn't.

2706
01:44:21,795 --> 01:44:23,715
It would not do well in the wild.

2707
01:44:23,715 --> 01:44:25,800
And it turns out in nature, this sort

2708
01:44:25,800 --> 01:44:27,500
of mutation is extremely

2709
01:44:27,800 --> 01:44:29,960
common. Oh. That's one of the most common

2710
01:44:29,960 --> 01:44:31,720
things that happens when you you get a

2711
01:44:31,720 --> 01:44:34,140
mutation is that it interferes with the reproduction.

2712
01:44:34,920 --> 01:44:35,420
So

2713
01:44:35,720 --> 01:44:37,720
with plants, you know, the seeds are not

2714
01:44:37,720 --> 01:44:40,095
viable or with mushrooms that might not make

2715
01:44:40,095 --> 01:44:42,095
spores or it might make spores that don't

2716
01:44:42,095 --> 01:44:44,574
germinate. Mhmm. And in nature, those sorts of

2717
01:44:44,574 --> 01:44:47,695
things just die out naturally. But, you know,

2718
01:44:47,695 --> 01:44:49,854
in in the laboratory, we can keep stuff

2719
01:44:49,854 --> 01:44:51,074
like Enigma going,

2720
01:44:51,775 --> 01:44:55,219
and nobody really knows what kind of mutation

2721
01:44:55,439 --> 01:44:57,119
it is. That would be a cool one

2722
01:44:57,119 --> 01:44:59,119
to do a full genome sequence on and

2723
01:44:59,119 --> 01:45:00,880
try to decode the DNA and see if

2724
01:45:00,880 --> 01:45:03,279
you can figure out what it is that's

2725
01:45:03,279 --> 01:45:06,255
damaged about the genome of that compared to

2726
01:45:06,255 --> 01:45:08,574
a regular cube and figure out, you know,

2727
01:45:08,574 --> 01:45:09,555
what's going on.

2728
01:45:10,175 --> 01:45:12,895
I noticed that these sorts of mushrooms, the

2729
01:45:12,895 --> 01:45:13,395
mycelium

2730
01:45:13,854 --> 01:45:17,395
looks very different under a microscope. So typically,

2731
01:45:17,890 --> 01:45:20,930
Cubensis mycelium, you'll see all the hyphae, and

2732
01:45:20,930 --> 01:45:22,229
they'll be very regular,

2733
01:45:22,850 --> 01:45:24,710
kind of boxy with septa

2734
01:45:25,329 --> 01:45:26,550
at regular intervals.

2735
01:45:26,850 --> 01:45:29,090
Whereas with Enigma, if I take some of

2736
01:45:29,090 --> 01:45:31,350
that mycelium and throw it under a microscope,

2737
01:45:31,564 --> 01:45:33,484
I see the regular mycelium, but then I

2738
01:45:33,484 --> 01:45:37,564
also see this much wider, thicker mycelium that

2739
01:45:37,564 --> 01:45:39,965
has all sorts of little vacuoles in it

2740
01:45:39,965 --> 01:45:41,505
that look like little dots

2741
01:45:41,885 --> 01:45:44,045
along the mycelium. Mhmm. And I haven't seen

2742
01:45:44,045 --> 01:45:46,125
that in any other mycelium, and I I

2743
01:45:46,125 --> 01:45:47,560
look at quite a bit of it. So

2744
01:45:47,560 --> 01:45:49,739
that has to be, you know, something

2745
01:45:50,199 --> 01:45:53,079
to do with, with what it's doing. But

2746
01:45:53,079 --> 01:45:55,100
but what it means, I have no idea.

2747
01:45:55,239 --> 01:45:57,719
Right on. Fair enough. Cool. Thank you. So,

2748
01:45:58,199 --> 01:45:59,340
next non sequitur.

2749
01:46:00,279 --> 01:46:03,164
We've talked about, wood lovers, quite a bit

2750
01:46:03,164 --> 01:46:06,545
on shaping fire. And, episode a 113

2751
01:46:06,845 --> 01:46:08,145
with Christian Kalen,

2752
01:46:08,685 --> 01:46:11,485
we talked about making a wood lover plot

2753
01:46:11,485 --> 01:46:13,085
on your own property, which is a lot

2754
01:46:13,085 --> 01:46:13,664
of fun.

2755
01:46:14,045 --> 01:46:14,524
And,

2756
01:46:15,320 --> 01:46:17,320
right at the end of the episode, Christian

2757
01:46:17,320 --> 01:46:20,039
mentioned something called Wood Lovers Paradise right as

2758
01:46:20,039 --> 01:46:21,560
we were ending the episode, and we had

2759
01:46:21,560 --> 01:46:23,480
kinda run out of time. But I've been

2760
01:46:23,480 --> 01:46:26,360
looking into it ever since that episode, and

2761
01:46:26,360 --> 01:46:28,185
I was curious to know what your thoughts

2762
01:46:28,185 --> 01:46:29,944
are on this because there's not a lot

2763
01:46:29,944 --> 01:46:32,585
of people talking about this idea that that,

2764
01:46:33,145 --> 01:46:34,845
taking a wood lover

2765
01:46:35,225 --> 01:46:35,725
mushroom

2766
01:46:36,104 --> 01:46:39,244
has the side effects of of temporary paralysis.

2767
01:46:39,305 --> 01:46:41,064
And, of course, the discussion is whether or

2768
01:46:41,064 --> 01:46:44,050
not this is this is actual paralysis coming

2769
01:46:44,050 --> 01:46:46,610
from the the the mushroom or whether or

2770
01:46:46,610 --> 01:46:48,610
not it's just somebody being so damn high

2771
01:46:48,610 --> 01:46:49,750
that they're not moving.

2772
01:46:52,369 --> 01:46:54,210
Would you please let us know what what's

2773
01:46:54,210 --> 01:46:57,654
going on inside the mycology world about this?

2774
01:46:57,715 --> 01:46:59,554
Are people talking about this? Is this a

2775
01:46:59,554 --> 01:47:02,375
thing? Is this just rumor for Instagram?

2776
01:47:02,914 --> 01:47:03,814
What are your thoughts?

2777
01:47:05,395 --> 01:47:07,954
Oh, yeah. Christian's super cool. I visit him

2778
01:47:07,954 --> 01:47:10,295
sometimes when I head through the Pacific Northwest,

2779
01:47:10,594 --> 01:47:13,569
but the wood lover's paralysis is really a

2780
01:47:13,569 --> 01:47:14,069
mystery,

2781
01:47:14,689 --> 01:47:16,869
and I do believe it's a real thing.

2782
01:47:17,409 --> 01:47:19,989
And what happens is people take certain mushrooms,

2783
01:47:20,130 --> 01:47:22,210
typically ones that grow on wood, but it's

2784
01:47:22,210 --> 01:47:23,809
not all of the ones that grow on

2785
01:47:23,809 --> 01:47:25,429
wood. It's just a certain clade,

2786
01:47:26,204 --> 01:47:27,585
and they will

2787
01:47:28,045 --> 01:47:29,024
start to feel

2788
01:47:29,324 --> 01:47:31,244
really strange, and then they won't be able

2789
01:47:31,244 --> 01:47:33,185
to move. And this paralysis

2790
01:47:34,125 --> 01:47:37,725
tends to stay around for a coiled while

2791
01:47:37,725 --> 01:47:40,239
after the psilocybin wears off. So I don't

2792
01:47:40,239 --> 01:47:42,020
think it's an effect of the psilocybin,

2793
01:47:42,960 --> 01:47:44,880
because if it was, it would wear off

2794
01:47:44,880 --> 01:47:46,800
after six hours, and he would see it

2795
01:47:46,800 --> 01:47:47,539
in cubensis.

2796
01:47:48,079 --> 01:47:50,420
You know, people eat huge amount of cubensis

2797
01:47:50,719 --> 01:47:53,460
all the time, and they never get paralyzed

2798
01:47:53,679 --> 01:47:55,385
from it. You know, sometimes they get so

2799
01:47:55,385 --> 01:47:56,984
high that they can't move, but once it

2800
01:47:56,984 --> 01:47:57,725
wears off,

2801
01:47:58,345 --> 01:48:01,005
you know, they're totally fine again. Mhmm. So

2802
01:48:01,064 --> 01:48:03,005
the wood lovers paralysis happens

2803
01:48:03,545 --> 01:48:05,005
with psilocybe azurescens,

2804
01:48:05,545 --> 01:48:06,604
psilocybe cyanescens,

2805
01:48:07,050 --> 01:48:10,250
Psilocybe illenii. And there's one in New Zealand,

2806
01:48:10,250 --> 01:48:11,309
Psilocybe warara,

2807
01:48:11,689 --> 01:48:14,729
which causes it even more reliably than any

2808
01:48:14,729 --> 01:48:15,949
of these other species,

2809
01:48:16,250 --> 01:48:18,670
and they're all very closely related species.

2810
01:48:19,369 --> 01:48:21,045
Do we do we have conjecture on what

2811
01:48:21,045 --> 01:48:22,885
the cause is, or is it we know

2812
01:48:22,885 --> 01:48:24,824
it happens, but we don't have an explanation

2813
01:48:24,885 --> 01:48:25,385
yet?

2814
01:48:26,005 --> 01:48:29,385
There's no shortage of conjecture on it. People

2815
01:48:29,604 --> 01:48:30,104
that,

2816
01:48:30,645 --> 01:48:34,085
have run it through analytical chemistry equipment noticed

2817
01:48:34,085 --> 01:48:36,539
that there are some extra peaks on the

2818
01:48:36,539 --> 01:48:38,539
graph that they get when they analyze a

2819
01:48:38,539 --> 01:48:40,319
wood lover that they don't see,

2820
01:48:40,859 --> 01:48:42,539
with something like a Liberty Cap or a

2821
01:48:42,539 --> 01:48:43,039
QBENSUS.

2822
01:48:43,659 --> 01:48:44,159
But,

2823
01:48:45,500 --> 01:48:45,979
really,

2824
01:48:46,939 --> 01:48:48,219
you know, if you go on the Internet,

2825
01:48:48,219 --> 01:48:49,925
there's no shortage of people that tell you

2826
01:48:49,925 --> 01:48:51,064
that they know exactly

2827
01:48:51,444 --> 01:48:51,944
why,

2828
01:48:52,404 --> 01:48:54,885
what causes with lovers paralysis, but they all

2829
01:48:54,885 --> 01:48:56,104
say something different.

2830
01:48:56,484 --> 01:48:58,404
So, you know, I found that you can

2831
01:48:58,404 --> 01:49:00,804
always tell that somebody doesn't know what they're

2832
01:49:00,804 --> 01:49:02,970
talking about because they claim to know

2833
01:49:03,289 --> 01:49:05,229
what causes with lover's paralysis.

2834
01:49:06,409 --> 01:49:08,489
You know, it might be a tryptamine. It

2835
01:49:08,489 --> 01:49:10,729
might be some molecule that we just don't

2836
01:49:10,729 --> 01:49:11,869
have any idea,

2837
01:49:12,810 --> 01:49:13,310
about,

2838
01:49:14,250 --> 01:49:15,229
but it's certainly

2839
01:49:15,610 --> 01:49:16,350
very mysterious

2840
01:49:16,729 --> 01:49:19,234
and elusive and making it harder to study.

2841
01:49:19,234 --> 01:49:22,435
It doesn't happen every time, and sometimes two

2842
01:49:22,435 --> 01:49:25,234
people will take a similar dose of the

2843
01:49:25,234 --> 01:49:28,055
same mushrooms. One person will get it, and

2844
01:49:28,114 --> 01:49:31,395
one person will not. So I'm convinced it's

2845
01:49:31,395 --> 01:49:32,375
a real thing,

2846
01:49:32,730 --> 01:49:33,710
but whether we'll

2847
01:49:34,170 --> 01:49:36,570
actually figure out what's behind it in our

2848
01:49:36,570 --> 01:49:37,070
lifetimes,

2849
01:49:37,449 --> 01:49:39,770
I am not so sure. Right on. Great

2850
01:49:39,770 --> 01:49:42,810
answer. Alright. Next non sequitur. This is one

2851
01:49:42,810 --> 01:49:44,570
that I'm asked all the time, and it

2852
01:49:44,570 --> 01:49:47,130
is a very common debate in mushrooms and

2853
01:49:47,130 --> 01:49:49,314
that it is this. When we are taking

2854
01:49:49,314 --> 01:49:50,614
our mushroom supplements,

2855
01:49:51,234 --> 01:49:53,554
is it okay and appropriate to take one

2856
01:49:53,554 --> 01:49:55,494
that is based just on,

2857
01:49:56,114 --> 01:49:58,194
mycelium, or do we really wanna make sure

2858
01:49:58,194 --> 01:49:59,875
that we're taking the fruiting body of the

2859
01:49:59,875 --> 01:50:00,375
supplement?

2860
01:50:01,850 --> 01:50:04,189
Yeah. That's a really good question, and

2861
01:50:04,569 --> 01:50:06,909
there's a lot of debates about that.

2862
01:50:07,289 --> 01:50:10,729
And it's complicated because it's hard to say

2863
01:50:10,729 --> 01:50:12,189
whether the mushroom supplements

2864
01:50:12,489 --> 01:50:14,510
really do anything at all,

2865
01:50:15,055 --> 01:50:17,795
and they definitely help some people

2866
01:50:18,175 --> 01:50:18,675
sometimes.

2867
01:50:19,055 --> 01:50:21,154
There's no doubt about that,

2868
01:50:21,694 --> 01:50:24,194
but it's less clear which people

2869
01:50:24,494 --> 01:50:26,194
should be taking mushroom supplements

2870
01:50:26,654 --> 01:50:27,154
and

2871
01:50:28,095 --> 01:50:29,395
for which conditions

2872
01:50:30,649 --> 01:50:33,050
and how often they should take it and

2873
01:50:33,050 --> 01:50:34,750
how much should they take.

2874
01:50:35,289 --> 01:50:37,289
So, you know, with any medicine, what really

2875
01:50:37,289 --> 01:50:39,770
matters is did you get enough of the

2876
01:50:39,770 --> 01:50:40,829
medicinal molecule

2877
01:50:41,210 --> 01:50:43,770
into your bloodstream to to have the effect

2878
01:50:43,770 --> 01:50:44,989
that you're looking for,

2879
01:50:45,614 --> 01:50:48,414
and everyone responds so much differently to all

2880
01:50:48,414 --> 01:50:49,074
of these

2881
01:50:49,614 --> 01:50:52,734
molecules, and in a mushroom, you're gonna have

2882
01:50:52,734 --> 01:50:54,514
hundreds of of different molecules

2883
01:50:54,814 --> 01:50:57,314
there, and they're present in different amounts,

2884
01:50:57,930 --> 01:51:00,650
with different growing conditions, different strains, and then

2885
01:51:00,650 --> 01:51:02,970
different amounts of these molecules are present in

2886
01:51:02,970 --> 01:51:05,289
the fruiting body and in the mycelium and

2887
01:51:05,289 --> 01:51:07,789
even different molecules in in many cases.

2888
01:51:08,729 --> 01:51:09,229
So

2889
01:51:09,574 --> 01:51:11,655
a lot of times with these medicinal mushrooms,

2890
01:51:11,655 --> 01:51:14,295
we don't really know which molecule it is

2891
01:51:14,295 --> 01:51:16,695
that you actually need, and you might say,

2892
01:51:16,695 --> 01:51:17,914
like, beta glucans.

2893
01:51:18,614 --> 01:51:21,015
And that's a reasonable answer, but there's thousands

2894
01:51:21,015 --> 01:51:23,994
of molecules that we call beta glucans.

2895
01:51:25,020 --> 01:51:26,859
And then, like, how much of this molecule

2896
01:51:26,859 --> 01:51:29,260
do you need, and which conditions does it

2897
01:51:29,260 --> 01:51:29,760
cure?

2898
01:51:30,300 --> 01:51:32,380
You know? It's it's really hard to say.

2899
01:51:32,380 --> 01:51:32,880
So,

2900
01:51:34,619 --> 01:51:36,780
in general, you're it's gonna be best to

2901
01:51:36,780 --> 01:51:39,484
take both the fruiting body and the mycelium,

2902
01:51:39,944 --> 01:51:41,465
and they don't seem to have a lot

2903
01:51:41,465 --> 01:51:43,564
a lot of negative side effects. So

2904
01:51:44,024 --> 01:51:46,744
more is generally better. Mhmm.

2905
01:51:47,625 --> 01:51:50,364
I don't typically notice much effects.

2906
01:51:51,000 --> 01:51:53,239
I think, you know, one medicinal mushroom that

2907
01:51:53,239 --> 01:51:56,779
definitely works are psilocybin mushrooms. I I notice

2908
01:51:57,399 --> 01:51:59,180
a lot of effects from those.

2909
01:51:59,720 --> 01:52:00,380
And then

2910
01:52:00,760 --> 01:52:03,560
the one that I think probably works is

2911
01:52:03,560 --> 01:52:04,060
haricium.

2912
01:52:04,954 --> 01:52:07,055
So the lion's mane, that,

2913
01:52:07,835 --> 01:52:10,255
has a nerve growth factor in it, and

2914
01:52:10,314 --> 01:52:10,814
so

2915
01:52:11,114 --> 01:52:13,515
that probably works. But it there's a bunch

2916
01:52:13,515 --> 01:52:17,295
of different nerve growth factors in the hericium

2917
01:52:17,435 --> 01:52:19,515
mushroom that are present in in different amounts

2918
01:52:19,515 --> 01:52:21,989
in different strains, and so some that are

2919
01:52:21,989 --> 01:52:24,229
in the mycelium and some in the fruiting

2920
01:52:24,229 --> 01:52:26,710
body. So probably best to take some of

2921
01:52:26,710 --> 01:52:27,210
both.

2922
01:52:27,750 --> 01:52:30,010
And then there's other ones like turkey tail

2923
01:52:30,149 --> 01:52:32,090
and Ganoderma and agarachan,

2924
01:52:32,550 --> 01:52:33,050
and

2925
01:52:33,585 --> 01:52:37,185
those definitely help some people sometimes, but it's

2926
01:52:37,185 --> 01:52:38,164
much more nebulous

2927
01:52:38,465 --> 01:52:40,945
exactly what they do. You know, in animal

2928
01:52:40,945 --> 01:52:42,725
studies, you can see that they're definitely

2929
01:52:43,025 --> 01:52:43,525
antiviral,

2930
01:52:44,385 --> 01:52:44,885
antibacterial,

2931
01:52:45,664 --> 01:52:48,625
and stimulate the immune system and and stuff

2932
01:52:48,625 --> 01:52:49,284
like that,

2933
01:52:49,639 --> 01:52:51,500
but something that's antiviral

2934
01:52:52,039 --> 01:52:53,960
doesn't mean that you can take it if

2935
01:52:53,960 --> 01:52:55,560
you have a virus and that you'll be

2936
01:52:55,560 --> 01:52:58,599
better, and something that stimulates your immune system

2937
01:52:58,599 --> 01:53:01,574
isn't always good for you to take. You

2938
01:53:01,574 --> 01:53:04,215
know, these mushrooms typically are healthy, and people

2939
01:53:04,215 --> 01:53:06,935
that take them are, you know, generally don't

2940
01:53:06,935 --> 01:53:09,435
don't have bad effects of them, but exactly

2941
01:53:09,654 --> 01:53:11,975
what they do and who should take them

2942
01:53:11,975 --> 01:53:14,215
and how much of each molecule they need

2943
01:53:14,215 --> 01:53:16,395
is just almost impossible to know.

2944
01:53:16,899 --> 01:53:19,539
And, you know, there's thousands of diseases that

2945
01:53:19,539 --> 01:53:22,119
are known, so to even test one mushroom

2946
01:53:22,659 --> 01:53:25,460
against thousands of diseases would be thousands of

2947
01:53:25,460 --> 01:53:28,020
clinical trials. So you're talking a a trillion

2948
01:53:28,020 --> 01:53:30,965
dollars right there. And then to test, you

2949
01:53:30,965 --> 01:53:33,604
know, every chemical in each mushroom against every

2950
01:53:33,604 --> 01:53:34,104
disease,

2951
01:53:34,564 --> 01:53:36,484
that's just like a huge amount of testing.

2952
01:53:36,484 --> 01:53:38,724
And then to test every mushroom against every

2953
01:53:38,724 --> 01:53:40,724
disease would cost more than all of the

2954
01:53:40,724 --> 01:53:42,804
money that's ever been printed in the history

2955
01:53:42,804 --> 01:53:43,545
of humanity.

2956
01:53:44,060 --> 01:53:46,140
So we kinda have to look to nature

2957
01:53:46,140 --> 01:53:49,819
to get clues as to which mushrooms might

2958
01:53:49,819 --> 01:53:51,760
be useful for which things,

2959
01:53:52,460 --> 01:53:54,300
or look to the the native cultures who

2960
01:53:54,300 --> 01:53:56,140
have been using them for thousands of years

2961
01:53:56,140 --> 01:53:58,604
and have figured some of this out. But

2962
01:53:58,604 --> 01:54:00,925
for the most part, it's not figured out,

2963
01:54:00,925 --> 01:54:02,845
and it's definitely not figured out to the

2964
01:54:02,845 --> 01:54:05,505
point where anybody can say that mycelium

2965
01:54:05,805 --> 01:54:07,664
or fruit body is better,

2966
01:54:08,125 --> 01:54:10,225
but definitely can't hurt to take both.

2967
01:54:10,630 --> 01:54:13,430
Damn. That's that's the best, most comprehensive answer

2968
01:54:13,430 --> 01:54:15,109
that I have gotten. Thank you for that,

2969
01:54:15,109 --> 01:54:15,609
Alan.

2970
01:54:15,989 --> 01:54:18,569
So I wanna shine some light on on,

2971
01:54:19,430 --> 01:54:20,949
what kind of feels like a side quest

2972
01:54:20,949 --> 01:54:23,110
of yours for other people. But from talking

2973
01:54:23,110 --> 01:54:24,635
to you, I know that it's very much

2974
01:54:24,635 --> 01:54:26,074
at the central of what you care about,

2975
01:54:26,074 --> 01:54:28,795
and that's your Python programming. You have put

2976
01:54:28,795 --> 01:54:30,814
out a whole bunch of,

2977
01:54:31,755 --> 01:54:33,694
software tools for,

2978
01:54:34,395 --> 01:54:35,135
for mycologists,

2979
01:54:35,594 --> 01:54:37,369
and I wanna make sure that we take

2980
01:54:37,369 --> 01:54:39,449
a moment and plug those for anybody who's

2981
01:54:39,449 --> 01:54:39,949
listening

2982
01:54:40,329 --> 01:54:42,349
so they can take advantage of this important

2983
01:54:42,409 --> 01:54:44,989
work that you're doing. I'm not even exactly

2984
01:54:45,130 --> 01:54:47,529
sure how to ask you the question other

2985
01:54:47,529 --> 01:54:49,529
than to say, will you tell us about

2986
01:54:49,529 --> 01:54:50,829
the tools that you've released?

2987
01:54:52,524 --> 01:54:53,744
Yeah. And so,

2988
01:54:54,364 --> 01:54:57,085
yeah, I've been doing I've been programming stuff

2989
01:54:57,085 --> 01:54:59,404
since I was, like, five years old, but

2990
01:54:59,404 --> 01:55:01,885
I didn't get into it really heavily until

2991
01:55:01,885 --> 01:55:02,625
more recently.

2992
01:55:03,404 --> 01:55:05,404
You know, all these AI tools make it

2993
01:55:05,404 --> 01:55:07,300
so instead of taking a month to code

2994
01:55:07,300 --> 01:55:09,140
something, I can do it in in just

2995
01:55:09,140 --> 01:55:10,119
a couple minutes.

2996
01:55:10,739 --> 01:55:11,239
And

2997
01:55:11,859 --> 01:55:14,260
so I've been I've written a bunch of

2998
01:55:14,260 --> 01:55:17,060
stuff that I think is useful for people.

2999
01:55:17,060 --> 01:55:19,000
And just like whenever I need a program

3000
01:55:19,140 --> 01:55:21,135
and there isn't a program to do it,

3001
01:55:21,295 --> 01:55:22,914
I'll just write it myself.

3002
01:55:23,694 --> 01:55:25,614
And, you know, I encourage other people to

3003
01:55:25,614 --> 01:55:27,934
experiment with this too. Even if you don't

3004
01:55:27,934 --> 01:55:31,295
know any programming, you can still use these

3005
01:55:31,295 --> 01:55:34,500
tools to make really useful programs. But for

3006
01:55:34,500 --> 01:55:36,819
someone who does know programming, then these tools

3007
01:55:36,819 --> 01:55:39,139
are even even more useful because they just

3008
01:55:39,139 --> 01:55:41,159
cut the amount of time that it takes

3009
01:55:41,460 --> 01:55:43,239
to do these things. So,

3010
01:55:44,019 --> 01:55:46,579
probably the coolest thing that I've written is

3011
01:55:46,579 --> 01:55:47,159
a replacement

3012
01:55:47,755 --> 01:55:49,055
for Adobe Lightroom.

3013
01:55:49,675 --> 01:55:51,914
And so I use Photoshop and Lightroom for

3014
01:55:51,914 --> 01:55:53,295
my editing, and

3015
01:55:53,595 --> 01:55:55,135
I have been

3016
01:55:55,435 --> 01:55:58,015
you know, Lightroom has not really been perfect,

3017
01:55:58,475 --> 01:55:59,914
for what I wanna do. And, you know,

3018
01:55:59,914 --> 01:56:01,854
what I do is just take a camera

3019
01:56:02,300 --> 01:56:03,739
out into the woods and try to get

3020
01:56:03,739 --> 01:56:06,060
the best picture I can of everything that

3021
01:56:06,060 --> 01:56:07,199
I see in nature.

3022
01:56:07,579 --> 01:56:09,520
And then when I get back home,

3023
01:56:09,820 --> 01:56:10,880
I want to

3024
01:56:11,420 --> 01:56:14,400
get all of those photos uploaded to

3025
01:56:14,885 --> 01:56:18,024
iNaturalist, mushroom observer, Instagram, LinkedIn,

3026
01:56:19,364 --> 01:56:22,404
all all of the other, places that people

3027
01:56:22,404 --> 01:56:24,965
upload their photos. And so you can do

3028
01:56:24,965 --> 01:56:27,145
it with Lightroom, but it's kind of clunky.

3029
01:56:27,685 --> 01:56:28,505
And so

3030
01:56:28,820 --> 01:56:31,140
I decided to make my own, and so

3031
01:56:31,140 --> 01:56:32,680
I've called this Faststack,

3032
01:56:33,780 --> 01:56:34,280
and,

3033
01:56:34,820 --> 01:56:36,659
Fast because I wanted to make it so

3034
01:56:36,659 --> 01:56:39,140
I can flip through the photos very quickly,

3035
01:56:39,140 --> 01:56:41,159
and I do a lot of photo stacking.

3036
01:56:41,795 --> 01:56:44,295
So, this one is available for GitHub.

3037
01:56:44,835 --> 01:56:46,454
Really everything I write

3038
01:56:46,914 --> 01:56:49,474
is I just release it for free under

3039
01:56:49,474 --> 01:56:52,034
the MIT license, which is the the freest

3040
01:56:52,034 --> 01:56:54,034
license there is, so anybody can use the

3041
01:56:54,034 --> 01:56:56,569
software for free. Anybody can edit it. People

3042
01:56:56,569 --> 01:56:58,649
can even take my software and sell it.

3043
01:56:58,649 --> 01:57:00,970
They don't have to give me money or

3044
01:57:00,970 --> 01:57:03,789
anything like that. It's just completely free software.

3045
01:57:04,810 --> 01:57:05,630
But FastStack,

3046
01:57:06,010 --> 01:57:07,770
I've been working on it for about six

3047
01:57:07,770 --> 01:57:10,409
months now, and it has come along. So

3048
01:57:10,409 --> 01:57:12,109
it's it's actually really useful.

3049
01:57:12,625 --> 01:57:14,405
So kinda does the same thing as Lightroom

3050
01:57:14,465 --> 01:57:16,244
and that it shows you your photos.

3051
01:57:16,945 --> 01:57:18,805
But one thing that's much better

3052
01:57:19,505 --> 01:57:22,064
is that you can drag and drop directly

3053
01:57:22,064 --> 01:57:24,784
into a web browser. So I can just

3054
01:57:24,784 --> 01:57:26,704
mark a whole bunch of my photos and

3055
01:57:26,704 --> 01:57:29,159
drag and drop them into iNaturalist or Mushroom

3056
01:57:29,159 --> 01:57:30,940
Observer and upload the photos

3057
01:57:31,560 --> 01:57:33,239
there, or I can mark a bunch of

3058
01:57:33,239 --> 01:57:35,320
them and drag them into Instagram to make

3059
01:57:35,320 --> 01:57:36,539
an Instagram post.

3060
01:57:37,479 --> 01:57:39,720
And then, also, it keeps track of how

3061
01:57:39,720 --> 01:57:41,914
far I've gone in each directory. So each

3062
01:57:41,914 --> 01:57:44,335
folder is a different day's worth of photos.

3063
01:57:44,395 --> 01:57:46,175
And when I look at all my folders,

3064
01:57:46,234 --> 01:57:48,015
I can it shows me

3065
01:57:48,395 --> 01:57:48,895
exactly

3066
01:57:49,435 --> 01:57:51,354
how far I've gotten so I can really

3067
01:57:51,354 --> 01:57:54,255
easily see, like, how much I've uploaded

3068
01:57:54,635 --> 01:57:55,534
in each directory.

3069
01:57:56,970 --> 01:57:59,210
Right on. I I believe that you have

3070
01:57:59,210 --> 01:58:01,449
another piece of software that you put out

3071
01:58:01,449 --> 01:58:04,590
that is, for DNA barcoding too. Right?

3072
01:58:07,130 --> 01:58:09,390
Yeah. So DNA barcoding one,

3073
01:58:10,170 --> 01:58:12,564
is a website. And so I wrote it

3074
01:58:12,564 --> 01:58:14,744
in Python, but instead of just distributing

3075
01:58:15,445 --> 01:58:18,005
the Python code, I made a website and

3076
01:58:18,005 --> 01:58:20,164
have that run-in the back end, and that

3077
01:58:20,164 --> 01:58:23,784
is called dicaria. So it's dicaria.us,

3078
01:58:24,779 --> 01:58:27,439
And this one is for building phylogenetic trees.

3079
01:58:28,139 --> 01:58:28,639
And

3080
01:58:29,420 --> 01:58:31,739
so there's already a couple websites like this,

3081
01:58:31,739 --> 01:58:33,840
but they're really clunky and,

3082
01:58:35,179 --> 01:58:38,079
kinda hard to use. And so this one,

3083
01:58:39,175 --> 01:58:41,034
you can give it an iNaturalist

3084
01:58:41,414 --> 01:58:44,454
URL or a MycoMap URL, and it'll build

3085
01:58:44,454 --> 01:58:45,914
a phylogenetic tree

3086
01:58:46,215 --> 01:58:48,155
out of the DNA sequences,

3087
01:58:48,695 --> 01:58:51,274
on that URL. So you can see exactly

3088
01:58:51,335 --> 01:58:53,500
how the different things are related, and you

3089
01:58:53,500 --> 01:58:55,260
can use it for anything. You can use

3090
01:58:55,260 --> 01:58:57,119
it for plants, viruses, bacteria.

3091
01:58:57,739 --> 01:58:59,899
I use it for fungi, but it makes

3092
01:58:59,899 --> 01:59:01,500
it so you know, it used to be

3093
01:59:01,500 --> 01:59:03,180
to make a phylogenetic tree. You had to

3094
01:59:03,180 --> 01:59:05,260
edit all these text files and then run

3095
01:59:05,260 --> 01:59:06,880
all these command line tools.

3096
01:59:07,564 --> 01:59:08,064
And,

3097
01:59:08,765 --> 01:59:11,564
it was very time consuming just to edit

3098
01:59:11,564 --> 01:59:13,564
the files and then make the tree and

3099
01:59:13,564 --> 01:59:15,965
then change something and make it again. And

3100
01:59:15,965 --> 01:59:18,445
so now it's very quick. It's very quick

3101
01:59:18,445 --> 01:59:19,425
to edit them.

3102
01:59:20,030 --> 01:59:22,350
Anybody can do it just on their phone.

3103
01:59:22,350 --> 01:59:23,729
You don't have to know anything

3104
01:59:24,030 --> 01:59:24,770
about DNA

3105
01:59:25,229 --> 01:59:26,690
to make a good tree.

3106
01:59:27,470 --> 01:59:28,289
And so,

3107
01:59:29,630 --> 01:59:31,949
that one is still in active development, but

3108
01:59:31,949 --> 01:59:33,470
it's it's to the point that I I

3109
01:59:33,470 --> 01:59:34,770
use it all the time.

3110
01:59:35,345 --> 01:59:37,765
And if I just wanna answer a question

3111
01:59:37,824 --> 01:59:38,885
like, well,

3112
01:59:39,505 --> 01:59:42,784
how many russula are there in California, and

3113
01:59:42,784 --> 01:59:45,045
how are they related? I'll just search for

3114
01:59:45,265 --> 01:59:47,824
russula on iNaturalist and just pull up the

3115
01:59:47,824 --> 01:59:50,609
observations with DNA barcodes and then paste that

3116
01:59:50,609 --> 01:59:51,109
URL

3117
01:59:51,890 --> 01:59:54,689
into the dikaria website, and it'll download all

3118
01:59:54,689 --> 01:59:57,729
those sequences from iNaturalist and calculate how they're

3119
01:59:57,729 --> 02:00:00,850
all related and then build a graphical tree

3120
02:00:00,850 --> 02:00:04,069
showing exactly how many species we have.

3121
02:00:04,494 --> 02:00:06,335
And, you know, it's so much better than

3122
02:00:06,335 --> 02:00:08,255
trying to get that information from a field

3123
02:00:08,255 --> 02:00:10,175
guide because field guides would be all out

3124
02:00:10,175 --> 02:00:12,175
of date. This has all of the the

3125
02:00:12,175 --> 02:00:14,435
very up to date, all of the undescribed

3126
02:00:14,655 --> 02:00:16,975
species that that are not in any of

3127
02:00:16,975 --> 02:00:17,550
the books,

3128
02:00:18,349 --> 02:00:19,489
are all in there.

3129
02:00:19,949 --> 02:00:20,670
And so,

3130
02:00:21,149 --> 02:00:23,469
that works pretty well and just makes it

3131
02:00:23,469 --> 02:00:25,969
really easy for people to build phylogenetic

3132
02:00:26,270 --> 02:00:29,170
trees. Again, the one thing that people use,

3133
02:00:30,425 --> 02:00:33,324
the one thing that people use more than

3134
02:00:33,385 --> 02:00:35,324
anything else is probably the iNaturalist,

3135
02:00:36,265 --> 02:00:37,805
herbarium label generator.

3136
02:00:38,505 --> 02:00:39,485
And so

3137
02:00:39,864 --> 02:00:41,704
that one, I have it on

3138
02:00:42,880 --> 02:00:46,560
it's up on images.mushroomobserver.org/labels,

3139
02:00:46,560 --> 02:00:47,920
but you can find it in the GitHub

3140
02:00:47,920 --> 02:00:50,399
as well. But it's a website that you

3141
02:00:50,399 --> 02:00:53,619
enter an iNaturalist or a mushroom observer observation

3142
02:00:53,760 --> 02:00:55,779
number, and then it goes out to iNaturalist

3143
02:00:56,000 --> 02:00:56,979
or mushroom observer,

3144
02:00:57,505 --> 02:01:00,145
downloads a whole bunch of data about your

3145
02:01:00,145 --> 02:01:03,204
observation, and then prints out a really professional

3146
02:01:03,345 --> 02:01:05,664
looking label with a QR code that you

3147
02:01:05,664 --> 02:01:08,545
can print out. And so I have thousands

3148
02:01:08,545 --> 02:01:11,524
of bags of mushrooms here for study, and

3149
02:01:11,739 --> 02:01:13,439
I'll make a label for each one.

3150
02:01:14,140 --> 02:01:14,720
And then,

3151
02:01:15,579 --> 02:01:17,260
you know, they they look really nice. I

3152
02:01:17,260 --> 02:01:19,659
print them on cotton cardstock, so the label

3153
02:01:19,659 --> 02:01:22,320
will last for thousands of years in herbarium.

3154
02:01:23,020 --> 02:01:25,020
And when I send it in for DNA

3155
02:01:25,020 --> 02:01:27,225
sequencing, they don't have to type in the

3156
02:01:27,225 --> 02:01:29,145
nine digit number for every one of my

3157
02:01:29,145 --> 02:01:31,545
collections. They could just scan it real quick

3158
02:01:31,545 --> 02:01:34,524
with the barcode scanner and check them in

3159
02:01:34,905 --> 02:01:36,905
really quickly. And so,

3160
02:01:37,305 --> 02:01:37,784
that's,

3161
02:01:38,345 --> 02:01:40,204
one that a lot of different people

3162
02:01:40,680 --> 02:01:43,479
use to organize the herbarium and and make

3163
02:01:43,479 --> 02:01:45,239
labels. And then I also have the source

3164
02:01:45,239 --> 02:01:47,100
code available so you can,

3165
02:01:48,039 --> 02:01:50,600
download that and and write it locally if

3166
02:01:50,600 --> 02:01:51,180
you want.

3167
02:01:51,719 --> 02:01:53,640
Right on. That sounds like a great useful

3168
02:01:53,640 --> 02:01:56,414
tool and especially having the ability to interact

3169
02:01:56,494 --> 02:02:00,175
with, the more active live living database instead

3170
02:02:00,175 --> 02:02:02,414
of, you know, trying to deal with paper

3171
02:02:02,414 --> 02:02:05,454
books or even out outmoded, you know, websites

3172
02:02:05,454 --> 02:02:06,194
or forums.

3173
02:02:06,734 --> 02:02:09,395
I I also wanna talk about ultraviolet flashlights,

3174
02:02:10,469 --> 02:02:13,269
and and why they are useful. I I

3175
02:02:13,269 --> 02:02:14,069
finally got one,

3176
02:02:15,429 --> 02:02:17,510
just a few months ago, and I picked

3177
02:02:17,510 --> 02:02:20,149
up a, you know, a cheapie for $16.

3178
02:02:20,149 --> 02:02:21,914
And I'm like, oh, this is really cool.

3179
02:02:21,914 --> 02:02:23,994
I definitely need a much nicer one. And

3180
02:02:23,994 --> 02:02:25,614
so then I upgraded,

3181
02:02:26,475 --> 02:02:28,395
and, I see that that the ones that

3182
02:02:28,395 --> 02:02:30,395
I upgraded to you all you have back

3183
02:02:30,395 --> 02:02:32,715
on your Linktree as well. So you've got

3184
02:02:32,715 --> 02:02:34,314
them back in stock. So I wanted to

3185
02:02:34,314 --> 02:02:35,055
plug them

3186
02:02:35,489 --> 02:02:38,310
because there really is such a difference between

3187
02:02:38,850 --> 02:02:42,289
using a a UV flashlight that's just got

3188
02:02:42,289 --> 02:02:42,789
some,

3189
02:02:43,329 --> 02:02:43,829
cheap

3190
02:02:44,369 --> 02:02:45,909
LEDs in it versus,

3191
02:02:46,930 --> 02:02:47,430
using,

3192
02:02:48,289 --> 02:02:50,444
a higher end one that has got the

3193
02:02:50,444 --> 02:02:50,944
professional,

3194
02:02:51,484 --> 02:02:52,864
maybe even patented

3195
02:02:53,645 --> 02:02:54,944
filter on the front.

3196
02:02:55,324 --> 02:02:55,804
And,

3197
02:02:56,364 --> 02:02:57,804
you know, at $3.65

3198
02:02:57,804 --> 02:03:00,045
and m, it really makes everything in the

3199
02:03:00,045 --> 02:03:01,344
forest pop.

3200
02:03:01,804 --> 02:03:04,210
But but since I'm not as hardcore of

3201
02:03:04,210 --> 02:03:05,750
a mycologist as you,

3202
02:03:06,369 --> 02:03:08,449
I don't really know how to describe to

3203
02:03:08,449 --> 02:03:11,729
people, like, the best uses for it as

3204
02:03:11,729 --> 02:03:12,949
far as as,

3205
02:03:13,409 --> 02:03:15,510
hunting for and researching mushrooms.

3206
02:03:15,885 --> 02:03:17,645
So will will you just kinda talk about

3207
02:03:17,645 --> 02:03:18,305
the usability

3208
02:03:18,845 --> 02:03:20,305
of of these ultraviolet

3209
02:03:20,765 --> 02:03:23,085
flashlights? Because I can talk about how fun

3210
02:03:23,085 --> 02:03:24,685
they are and how badass they are in

3211
02:03:24,685 --> 02:03:27,484
tide pools as well because all of the

3212
02:03:27,484 --> 02:03:29,640
all of the everything with a with a

3213
02:03:29,720 --> 02:03:30,220
exoskeleton

3214
02:03:30,600 --> 02:03:32,760
just pops up. But but I'm not as

3215
02:03:32,760 --> 02:03:33,260
experienced

3216
02:03:33,640 --> 02:03:35,640
when with mushrooms. So will you pick that

3217
02:03:35,640 --> 02:03:36,140
up?

3218
02:03:37,239 --> 02:03:39,159
Yeah. So it turns out that in nature,

3219
02:03:39,159 --> 02:03:40,699
there's a ton of

3220
02:03:41,079 --> 02:03:44,199
fluorescent molecules, and a fluorescent molecule is just

3221
02:03:44,199 --> 02:03:44,860
a chemical

3222
02:03:45,195 --> 02:03:48,414
where when ultraviolet light hits it, it reemits

3223
02:03:49,114 --> 02:03:50,975
a longer wavelength photon,

3224
02:03:51,755 --> 02:03:54,715
that's in the visible spectrum. So sorta like

3225
02:03:54,715 --> 02:03:56,795
a chemical sensor in that you can shine

3226
02:03:56,795 --> 02:03:59,840
it on different things, and some things don't

3227
02:03:59,840 --> 02:04:02,639
light up at all, whereas other things just

3228
02:04:02,639 --> 02:04:04,800
light up like crazy, and that's due to

3229
02:04:04,800 --> 02:04:06,739
the presence of fluorescent chemicals.

3230
02:04:07,439 --> 02:04:10,739
And they are really cool for making artwork

3231
02:04:11,265 --> 02:04:12,944
and that you can, like, shine it on

3232
02:04:12,944 --> 02:04:15,364
things and get these otherworldly colors.

3233
02:04:15,824 --> 02:04:18,064
But they're also really good for science and

3234
02:04:18,064 --> 02:04:19,904
that you can detect the presence of these

3235
02:04:19,904 --> 02:04:22,784
chemicals that normally you just wouldn't be able

3236
02:04:22,784 --> 02:04:24,244
to notice that they're there.

3237
02:04:24,560 --> 02:04:26,720
And so sometimes I'll be in the woods

3238
02:04:26,720 --> 02:04:28,319
and I'll find the mushroom, and I won't

3239
02:04:28,319 --> 02:04:30,000
I won't know quite what it is. And

3240
02:04:30,000 --> 02:04:31,439
I'll shine the UV light on it, and

3241
02:04:31,439 --> 02:04:33,359
I'll be like, oh, yeah. It's one of

3242
02:04:33,359 --> 02:04:36,079
those. And I'll just instantly know what it

3243
02:04:36,079 --> 02:04:38,239
is based on the the color that it

3244
02:04:38,239 --> 02:04:38,925
lights up.

3245
02:04:39,965 --> 02:04:41,965
And so I do a whole bunch of

3246
02:04:41,965 --> 02:04:43,104
ultraviolet photography,

3247
02:04:43,564 --> 02:04:45,564
and, you know, it's really easy to get

3248
02:04:45,564 --> 02:04:48,045
a good photo good ultraviolet photo from a

3249
02:04:48,045 --> 02:04:50,364
cell phone or or, you know, from a

3250
02:04:50,364 --> 02:04:50,864
professional

3251
02:04:51,164 --> 02:04:51,664
camera

3252
02:04:52,204 --> 02:04:52,704
setup.

3253
02:04:55,140 --> 02:04:58,180
And what you see really depends a lot

3254
02:04:58,180 --> 02:04:59,859
on where you are. Like, if you're out

3255
02:04:59,859 --> 02:05:02,340
in the desert, everything out in the desert

3256
02:05:02,340 --> 02:05:04,899
has a lot of ultraviolet protection, so none

3257
02:05:04,899 --> 02:05:05,719
of the plants

3258
02:05:06,274 --> 02:05:08,114
light up at all. And instead, you'll see

3259
02:05:08,114 --> 02:05:09,975
certain minerals lighting up,

3260
02:05:11,155 --> 02:05:11,655
and,

3261
02:05:12,914 --> 02:05:15,395
a lot of insects. The scorpions light up

3262
02:05:15,395 --> 02:05:16,135
like crazy.

3263
02:05:16,675 --> 02:05:18,630
Whereas if you go deep in the forest,

3264
02:05:18,710 --> 02:05:21,750
then those plants don't need the ultraviolet protection,

3265
02:05:21,750 --> 02:05:23,929
so you see a whole lot more fluorescence,

3266
02:05:24,229 --> 02:05:26,789
a lot more lights up. You get completely

3267
02:05:26,789 --> 02:05:28,949
different colors off of the different plants and

3268
02:05:28,949 --> 02:05:30,569
lichens. Some of the flowers

3269
02:05:31,270 --> 02:05:34,525
look spectacular because they have fluorescent pollen. And

3270
02:05:34,525 --> 02:05:36,864
then if you go into the Amazon Rainforest,

3271
02:05:37,405 --> 02:05:40,685
shining it around is almost like fireworks. Almost

3272
02:05:40,685 --> 02:05:42,845
everything lights up, and you get every color

3273
02:05:42,845 --> 02:05:43,585
in the rainbow.

3274
02:05:44,925 --> 02:05:45,244
Just,

3275
02:05:45,805 --> 02:05:48,525
everything is covered in in something that that's

3276
02:05:48,525 --> 02:05:49,739
fluorescent there.

3277
02:05:50,699 --> 02:05:53,340
Oh, man. The rainforest. That sounds really, really

3278
02:05:53,340 --> 02:05:55,180
cool to get all of that. I like

3279
02:05:55,180 --> 02:05:56,480
your description of fireworks.

3280
02:05:57,579 --> 02:05:59,420
While I have not been to the rainforest

3281
02:05:59,420 --> 02:06:00,619
with it I mean, I except for, I

3282
02:06:00,619 --> 02:06:02,524
guess, I live in a rainforest, but but

3283
02:06:02,524 --> 02:06:03,965
I haven't been over to the hoe with

3284
02:06:03,965 --> 02:06:05,725
it yet. But here on the island, I've

3285
02:06:05,725 --> 02:06:07,024
taken it into the forests.

3286
02:06:07,484 --> 02:06:10,925
And, it's amazing when when mushrooms suddenly are

3287
02:06:10,925 --> 02:06:13,484
glowing from, you know, ten, twelve feet away.

3288
02:06:13,484 --> 02:06:15,739
It's almost like you you shine the light

3289
02:06:15,739 --> 02:06:17,020
and then it, like, waves to you. It's

3290
02:06:17,020 --> 02:06:18,699
like, oh, I'm over here, you know, because

3291
02:06:18,699 --> 02:06:21,100
they really they really stand out. And what

3292
02:06:21,100 --> 02:06:23,180
we real what really stands out here also

3293
02:06:23,180 --> 02:06:25,180
are all of our ferns. The bottom side

3294
02:06:25,180 --> 02:06:26,779
of ferns are all red. So if you

3295
02:06:26,779 --> 02:06:28,779
see all these red plants, which is really

3296
02:06:28,779 --> 02:06:29,279
extraordinary.

3297
02:06:30,195 --> 02:06:32,614
So, so, yeah, I recommend it to folks,

3298
02:06:32,675 --> 02:06:34,614
like, just if you like

3299
02:06:35,074 --> 02:06:37,155
nature, full stop. Right? And and if you

3300
02:06:37,155 --> 02:06:39,234
also wanna go into mushrooms or tide pools

3301
02:06:39,234 --> 02:06:41,234
or it's also good to have it, but

3302
02:06:41,234 --> 02:06:44,354
I recommend everyone gets one. And the the

3303
02:06:44,354 --> 02:06:46,289
the the Conroy ones that you sell on

3304
02:06:46,289 --> 02:06:47,270
your LinkedIn

3305
02:06:47,729 --> 02:06:48,550
are fabulous

3306
02:06:49,010 --> 02:06:51,810
because, again, they've got that specialty filter. They're

3307
02:06:51,810 --> 02:06:53,590
not just made with cheap LEDs.

3308
02:06:55,489 --> 02:06:57,890
Yeah. So the reason going to get a

3309
02:06:57,890 --> 02:07:00,210
a UV light, you know, the most important

3310
02:07:00,210 --> 02:07:01,875
thing is the wavelength. So if you go

3311
02:07:01,875 --> 02:07:04,614
to a party, they will have these purple

3312
02:07:04,755 --> 02:07:07,234
ultraviolet lights, and that's 395

3313
02:07:07,234 --> 02:07:07,734
nanometers.

3314
02:07:08,274 --> 02:07:10,274
And those are very cheap, but if you

3315
02:07:10,274 --> 02:07:12,375
take them out into the woods, they're pretty

3316
02:07:12,435 --> 02:07:13,734
disappointing. Yeah.

3317
02:07:14,270 --> 02:07:17,390
The other wavelength that's common is 365,

3318
02:07:17,390 --> 02:07:19,949
and a three sixty five light looks a

3319
02:07:19,949 --> 02:07:22,109
whole lot more blue. It looks a whole

3320
02:07:22,109 --> 02:07:24,430
lot less purple, and it's further outside of

3321
02:07:24,430 --> 02:07:26,845
what your eye can see. So when you're

3322
02:07:26,845 --> 02:07:29,324
looking at something, you're really only seeing the

3323
02:07:29,324 --> 02:07:32,284
fluorescence instead of seeing the light from your

3324
02:07:32,284 --> 02:07:35,164
light. So you definitely wanna get a three

3325
02:07:35,164 --> 02:07:37,324
sixty five light and not a three ninety

3326
02:07:37,324 --> 02:07:39,405
five light, and then also just like a

3327
02:07:39,405 --> 02:07:40,380
really bright one.

3328
02:07:40,859 --> 02:07:43,100
So there's a lot of really good ones

3329
02:07:43,100 --> 02:07:44,000
on Amazon,

3330
02:07:44,460 --> 02:07:45,600
or I sell,

3331
02:07:46,139 --> 02:07:48,219
really nice ones that are branded with my

3332
02:07:48,219 --> 02:07:49,119
company, Mycena.

3333
02:07:49,979 --> 02:07:51,659
It doesn't really matter where you get it,

3334
02:07:51,659 --> 02:07:53,899
but just a a really bright three sixty

3335
02:07:53,899 --> 02:07:56,824
five nanometer light is just makes it really

3336
02:07:56,824 --> 02:07:58,685
cool to be in the woods at night.

3337
02:07:58,985 --> 02:08:01,465
Excellent. Thank you. So, Alan, let's finish off

3338
02:08:01,465 --> 02:08:02,025
with this.

3339
02:08:02,465 --> 02:08:03,405
You know,

3340
02:08:04,985 --> 02:08:07,945
so many people are looking to reconnect with

3341
02:08:07,945 --> 02:08:10,685
themselves and with the Earth and with nature.

3342
02:08:10,824 --> 02:08:12,619
And, you know, some people are doing it

3343
02:08:12,619 --> 02:08:14,300
because they're bored with their life, other people

3344
02:08:14,300 --> 02:08:16,139
because of the life stresses. There's just a

3345
02:08:16,139 --> 02:08:18,560
lot of good reasons to go into nature.

3346
02:08:20,139 --> 02:08:22,539
When you are talking with somebody and you're

3347
02:08:22,539 --> 02:08:25,599
warmly encouraging them to lean into mushrooms,

3348
02:08:26,055 --> 02:08:27,735
I'd like to hear what you say to

3349
02:08:27,735 --> 02:08:29,814
people. Let's let's end this with a, like,

3350
02:08:29,814 --> 02:08:32,135
a, like, a call to arms for mushrooms

3351
02:08:32,135 --> 02:08:34,135
to to to get out and do some

3352
02:08:34,135 --> 02:08:36,854
foraging. What what do you tell people to

3353
02:08:36,854 --> 02:08:39,494
kinda, like, encourage them to, you know, get

3354
02:08:39,494 --> 02:08:41,789
out from behind their computer and and and

3355
02:08:41,789 --> 02:08:43,569
get out there and and look at mushrooms?

3356
02:08:45,390 --> 02:08:47,869
Yeah. I think there's something in our DNA

3357
02:08:47,869 --> 02:08:50,689
that makes us really enjoy being in nature.

3358
02:08:51,310 --> 02:08:53,649
And, you know, it's partly because we evolved

3359
02:08:53,789 --> 02:08:56,270
in nature and partly just because everything in

3360
02:08:56,270 --> 02:08:59,204
nature gets more and more interesting the closer

3361
02:08:59,204 --> 02:09:00,645
you look at it and the better you

3362
02:09:00,645 --> 02:09:02,805
know it. And it's sort of like a

3363
02:09:02,805 --> 02:09:04,025
never ending fractal

3364
02:09:04,405 --> 02:09:06,025
where the closer you look,

3365
02:09:06,405 --> 02:09:08,564
you know, the more detail you see, and

3366
02:09:08,564 --> 02:09:11,364
that never really ends even with microscopes and

3367
02:09:11,364 --> 02:09:12,779
and even beyond. There's

3368
02:09:13,260 --> 02:09:15,020
just so much to see out there, and

3369
02:09:15,020 --> 02:09:16,779
it's also just really good for your mental

3370
02:09:16,779 --> 02:09:18,699
health to get outside and and spend a

3371
02:09:18,699 --> 02:09:20,539
lot of time in nature. And that's one

3372
02:09:20,539 --> 02:09:22,380
of the reasons I quit my job, like,

3373
02:09:22,380 --> 02:09:24,460
fifteen years ago and decided to be a

3374
02:09:24,460 --> 02:09:26,699
mycologist full time is because I just wanted

3375
02:09:26,699 --> 02:09:27,284
to spend

3376
02:09:27,685 --> 02:09:30,425
more time outside in in cool places.

3377
02:09:31,845 --> 02:09:34,425
So the main thing that I think people

3378
02:09:34,885 --> 02:09:37,145
should do is use the iNaturalist

3379
02:09:37,604 --> 02:09:38,985
app. So iNaturalist

3380
02:09:39,539 --> 02:09:42,020
is an app, and it's a website. And

3381
02:09:42,020 --> 02:09:43,239
the point of iNaturalist

3382
02:09:43,539 --> 02:09:46,179
is to bring people closer to nature, and

3383
02:09:46,179 --> 02:09:48,039
it does a really good job of that.

3384
02:09:48,099 --> 02:09:49,380
So the idea is that you can take

3385
02:09:49,380 --> 02:09:52,179
a picture of anything in nature and add

3386
02:09:52,179 --> 02:09:53,079
it to iNaturalist,

3387
02:09:54,215 --> 02:09:57,435
and then it will try to automatically identify

3388
02:09:57,655 --> 02:09:59,814
it using computer vision. And so if you

3389
02:09:59,814 --> 02:10:01,755
have a really good photo of a mushroom,

3390
02:10:02,295 --> 02:10:04,694
it'll be correct, you know, 95%

3391
02:10:04,694 --> 02:10:06,614
of the time. But the really cool thing

3392
02:10:06,614 --> 02:10:08,375
about it is that it makes a permanent

3393
02:10:08,375 --> 02:10:08,875
record.

3394
02:10:09,460 --> 02:10:10,840
And so these records

3395
02:10:11,220 --> 02:10:13,859
are publicly accessible, and people will come along

3396
02:10:13,859 --> 02:10:14,840
and identify

3397
02:10:15,140 --> 02:10:16,600
your mushrooms for you.

3398
02:10:17,300 --> 02:10:17,800
Or,

3399
02:10:18,340 --> 02:10:19,939
anytime I see a plant and I don't

3400
02:10:19,939 --> 02:10:21,619
know what the plant is, I'll put it

3401
02:10:21,619 --> 02:10:24,119
on iNaturalist, and people will come along.

3402
02:10:25,094 --> 02:10:26,934
And, you know, the botanist will tell me

3403
02:10:26,934 --> 02:10:29,914
exactly what plant I have. So with mushrooms,

3404
02:10:30,054 --> 02:10:32,614
it's really important to get one photo that

3405
02:10:32,614 --> 02:10:33,675
has the underside

3406
02:10:34,054 --> 02:10:35,574
and the top of the mushroom in the

3407
02:10:35,574 --> 02:10:37,590
same photo. With plants, you want

3408
02:10:38,069 --> 02:10:40,069
one photo that has the leaf and the

3409
02:10:40,069 --> 02:10:41,929
flower in the same photo.

3410
02:10:42,630 --> 02:10:45,270
But, you know, any anything is really cool

3411
02:10:45,270 --> 02:10:47,109
to add to that. And if people have

3412
02:10:47,109 --> 02:10:48,869
a bunch of stuff on their iNaturalist, they

3413
02:10:48,869 --> 02:10:50,789
can message me their username, and I'll flip

3414
02:10:50,789 --> 02:10:53,304
through their mushrooms and try to put names

3415
02:10:53,304 --> 02:10:53,965
on stuff.

3416
02:10:55,304 --> 02:10:57,944
Right on. Cool. Thank you, Alan. So so

3417
02:10:57,944 --> 02:10:59,944
in and thank you, Alan, for spending your

3418
02:10:59,944 --> 02:11:02,024
time with us here on shaping fire today.

3419
02:11:02,024 --> 02:11:04,024
I know that you are a very busy

3420
02:11:04,024 --> 02:11:06,425
cat traveling around, and your time is very

3421
02:11:06,425 --> 02:11:06,925
valuable.

3422
02:11:07,300 --> 02:11:09,539
And, we all appreciate that you peeled off

3423
02:11:09,539 --> 02:11:11,140
some time for us today to, you know,

3424
02:11:11,140 --> 02:11:13,460
share your stories and your insights and and

3425
02:11:13,460 --> 02:11:15,880
actually probably just get most of us really

3426
02:11:16,020 --> 02:11:17,399
jazzed about mushrooms.

3427
02:11:17,780 --> 02:11:19,159
So thank you very much.

3428
02:11:20,235 --> 02:11:23,274
Thanks for having me on. Excellent. So friends,

3429
02:11:23,274 --> 02:11:24,235
if you want to,

3430
02:11:24,555 --> 02:11:27,755
follow along with Alan Rockefeller, I highly recommend

3431
02:11:27,755 --> 02:11:29,835
that you follow his Instagram. It is one

3432
02:11:29,835 --> 02:11:32,460
of my favorites, and that's at Alan, a

3433
02:11:32,460 --> 02:11:34,000
l a n, underscore

3434
02:11:34,460 --> 02:11:37,579
Rockefeller, r o c k e f e

3435
02:11:37,579 --> 02:11:40,780
l l e r. Allen underscore Rockefeller on

3436
02:11:40,780 --> 02:11:41,280
IG.

3437
02:11:42,220 --> 02:11:45,744
From his LinkedIn on his Instagram, you can

3438
02:11:45,744 --> 02:11:47,664
find everything else you want. You can find

3439
02:11:47,664 --> 02:11:50,385
the ultraviolet flashlight we were talking about and

3440
02:11:50,385 --> 02:11:53,664
his DNA barcode coding at home stuff, links

3441
02:11:53,664 --> 02:11:56,164
to his YouTube videos, which are also great,

3442
02:11:56,545 --> 02:11:58,550
as well as his iNaturalist profile

3443
02:11:59,170 --> 02:12:02,529
and links to his website at mycenall

3444
02:12:02,770 --> 02:12:04,389
mycena.llc

3445
02:12:04,529 --> 02:12:04,929
where,

3446
02:12:05,329 --> 02:12:07,810
you can book an upcoming trip to Costa

3447
02:12:07,810 --> 02:12:08,310
Rica,

3448
02:12:08,929 --> 02:12:11,510
with him and others to do some, mushrooming.

3449
02:12:11,729 --> 02:12:11,954
So,

3450
02:12:12,835 --> 02:12:15,555
that is all at allen underscore rockefeller on

3451
02:12:15,555 --> 02:12:17,635
his IG. So thank you for being with

3452
02:12:17,635 --> 02:12:20,195
us. This has been shaping fire episode one

3453
02:12:20,195 --> 02:12:22,515
twenty eight. You can find more episodes of

3454
02:12:22,515 --> 02:12:24,595
the shaping fire podcast and subscribe to the

3455
02:12:24,595 --> 02:12:26,274
show at shapingfire.com

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02:12:26,274 --> 02:12:27,930
and wherever you get your podcasts.

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02:12:28,329 --> 02:12:30,090
If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate

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02:12:30,090 --> 02:12:31,530
it if you would leave a positive review

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02:12:31,530 --> 02:12:33,310
of the podcast wherever you download.

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02:12:33,770 --> 02:12:35,850
Your review will help others find the show

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02:12:35,850 --> 02:12:37,770
so they can enjoy it too. On the

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02:12:37,770 --> 02:12:40,010
Shaping Fire website, you can also subscribe to

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02:12:40,010 --> 02:12:42,435
the newsletter for insights into the latest cannabis

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02:12:42,675 --> 02:12:44,774
news, exclusive videos, and giveaways.

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02:12:45,395 --> 02:12:47,074
On the Shaping Fire website, you will also

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02:12:47,074 --> 02:12:49,954
find transcripts of today's podcast as well. Be

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02:12:49,954 --> 02:12:52,034
sure to follow on Instagram for all original

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02:12:52,034 --> 02:12:53,814
content not found on the podcast.

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02:12:54,194 --> 02:12:57,074
That's at shaping fire and at shango lows

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02:12:57,074 --> 02:12:57,734
on Instagram.

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02:12:58,170 --> 02:13:00,010
Be sure to check out Shaping Fire YouTube

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02:13:00,010 --> 02:13:02,810
channel for exclusive interviews, farm tours, and cannabis

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02:13:02,810 --> 02:13:03,310
lectures.

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02:13:03,770 --> 02:13:06,010
Does your company wanna reach our national audience

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02:13:06,010 --> 02:13:07,229
of cannabis enthusiasts?

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02:13:07,689 --> 02:13:10,170
Email hotspot@shapingfire.com

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02:13:10,170 --> 02:13:12,255
to find out how. Thanks for listening to

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02:13:12,255 --> 02:13:15,395
Shaping Fire. I've been your host, Shango Los.