Admito que compré este libro por sus hermosas ilustraciones y terminé enamorándome del contenido, aunque en un par de ocasiones lo llegué a sentir demasiado inundado de un vocabulario muy especializado. Resumo brevemente algunas cosas que captaron mi curiosidad: There are samples of fungi from all seven continents, spanning the entire fungal tree of life and representing well over half of known global diversity. The illustrations are gorgeous, of course, but there isn't even the smallest attempt at least some sense of proportion; plus - even thought this is a completely personal problem, I admit it - I find that this kind of encyclopaedic books work much better with actual photos than with drawings. After all, wouldn't it be much easier to recognize a fungus in real life if you firstly saw it in a photo compared to a drawing, no matter how beautiful and accurate? I understand that recognizing fungi in the wild is not the main aim of the book, but I still feel like I would have learned much more from real life photos. Nota Bene: This book is part of the outstanding Welcome to the Museum Series, which are uniformly excellent. There are quite a few, some of which include: Planetarium, Dinosaurium, Botanicum, Historium, and Animalium.

Big Picture Press, an imprint of Templar Publishing, is partnering with the Science Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to publish two new titles in its hugely successful Welcome to the Museum series. The first of the two books, Planetarium, in partnership with the Science Museum, is written by UCL Professor of Astrophysics, Raman Prinja and illustrated by The Book of Dust’s Chris Wormell. Set to publish later this year, the book will herald a likely surge in space publishing for the moon-landing anniversary in 2019. BBC Radio 4 presenter Sheila Dillon recently revealed she has taken mushroom supplements after her cancer treatment. Photograph: BBC What you learn about fungi is incredibly fascinating. For example, of the estimated 2.2 to 3.8 million different species of fungi on Earth, fewer than 5 percent have been identified! They are so diverse, and full of surprises. A lichen, for example, is actually made up of two different organisms functioning as a single, stable unit: a fungus, and an alga or cyanobacterium, which is it's source of food. Sort of like mating with a grocery store owner. Pretty clever! Under UK law, food labelling cannot “attribute to any foodstuff the property of preventing, treating or curing a human disease”. Such claims fall under medicines regulations and require marketing authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). A spokesperson for the MHRA said it had received no marketing applications for products containing lion’s mane, turkey tail, reishi, cordyceps, chaga or shiitake, and that a number of retailers had been warned about making health claims for mushroom products and use of the term “medicinal mushrooms”.

A digitised collection can be accessed online for free by researchers from anywhere in the world. It helps make research more efficient by sharing our knowledge with as many people as possible. Los líquenes son posiblemente una de las relaciones más exitosas que existen en la naturaleza y se deben a una asociación entre un hongo y un alga o cianobacteria. De esta relación, el hongo, por decirlo de una manera, se hace del poder de la fotosíntesis y se beneficia de los azúcares producidos en esta relación.

Tour the galleries and learn why fungi are more related to animals than plants. Discover how they evolved. Find out about their amazing variety of shapes and colors, some of them alien-like, almost monstrous, and disgustingly smelly, others incredibly beautiful.” Our fungal collections are particularly rich in type specimens: original material that is used to make clear links between the fungus as a living organism and the name applied to it. Our specimens help us identify and describe species that are yet unknown (which is approximately over 95% of all fungal species). They also allow us to investigate the interactions between and distribution of plants and fungi, as well as understand and analyse the impact of invasive species, pathogens and climate change.The second book, Fungarium, in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is written by the Kew mycology team and illustrated by Katie Scott – the artist behind Animalium and Botanicum in the same series. The book is the second title that Big Picture Press has created in partnership with Kew, the first, Botanicum, published in 2o16 and was written by Kew’s Director of Science, Kathy Willis. Planetarium will give readers a beautifully illustrated insight into our exploration of the universe so far. Extracts of turkey tail have been used as mainstream cancer treatments since the 1970s in Japan and 1980s in China. “Turkey tail is an immune system regulator,” says Baxter. “It’s very good for lung cancers and a lot of different cancers.” Who isn't excited about fungus? Unfortunately too many people, which is why I am so pleased that this book exists. A favourite Christmas present, this has left be with the New Year's resolution of becoming the best amateur mycologist I can be - something I had forgotten mattered to me so much despite a favourite series of unfortunate events book being The Grim Grotto (no spoilers on that one here - that is for another time).