This week, our Slack (Private online chat board) has been abuzz as always with various conversations, but one became pertinent for our event tomorrow at Empirical Brewery.
This week, we’re going to be working with mushrooms, looking at kingdom Fugni in all its glory. We’re going to be building sculptures, learning to grow mushrooms, playing with cultures and culture media, and talking about so much more. Mushrooms and fungi can do so many things, whether it be synthesize insulin for biotech companies to break down what use to be thought of as bio-incompatible plastics. And fungi are likely the first organisms that were ever part of biotechnology. Beer of some form or another has been brewed by humans for millennia, and, as you may be aware, yeast is a single celled fungus.
One of my personal passions is the intersection between biology and art & design. And one of the artists I talk about the most is Jae Rhim Lee. My favorite project of Jae’s is the infinity mushroom (Way more powerful than any similarly named gauntlet). Here’s a video of Jae describing her project.
For those of you who decided not to watch that highly entertaining TED talk, let me summarize it for you. When we die, we release the toxins our body has accumulated into the environment. Many of these are incredibly dangerous and there are few ways to deal with them. Luckily, many toxins that would be released through cremation or interned via traditional burial can be broken down by certain mushrooms. Because of this, Jae trained some mushrooms to start breaking down human tissues, then created a suit that was filled with spores of said mushrooms. If someone were buried in this suit, not only would their body be returned to nature in a minimally invasive way, the accumulated toxins in the body would be broken down safely by the mushrooms.
News recently broke that Luke Perry, the beloved actor from 90201 and Riverdale, was indeed buried in one of these suits containing spores form an infinity mushroom. People are starting to realize the power of biology to do wonderful things for the environment and the world around us, and people are starting to act.
If you’re interested in Jae Rhim Lee, I highly recommend watching her video above. If you’re interested in joining our slack, please write us at chitownbio@gmail.com . If you’re interested in talking more about mushrooms, join us at Empirical Brewery tomorrow night!