6 ways mushrooms can save the world | Paul Stamets | TED

Summary

El transcriptor destaca la importancia de salvar la Tierra, presentando seis soluciones micológicas basadas en el micelio, un tejido fúngico omnipresente en el suelo que puede absorber nutrientes y resistir erosiones. Se discute el potencial de los hongos para producir antibióticos, combatir el cambio climático y mejorar los suelos, además de su relación con los animales y la posibilidad de su existencia en otros planetas. Se mencionan aplicaciones prácticas como la limpieza de derrames de petróleo y el control de plagas, y se proyecta un futuro donde los hongos pueden ser clave en la sostenibilidad y la seguridad alimentaria.

Takeaways

• 🌍 La Tierra está en problemas y se encuentra en su sexta extinción masiva.
• 🍄 Se presenta una serie de seis soluciones micológicas basadas en el micelio, que infunde todos los paisajes y es extremadamente tenaz.
• 🌲 El micelio actúa como un transferidor multidirectional de nutrientes entre las plantas, similar a una madre que proporciona nutrientes a diferentes árboles.
• 🍄 Los hongos crecen rápidamente y producen fuertes antibióticos, estando más estrechamente relacionados con los fungos que con cualquier otro reino.
• 🌳 Los hongos fueron los primeros organismos en colonizar la tierra, hace 1.3 mil millones de años, y jugaron un papel crucial en la generación del suelo.
• 🛡 Los hongos pueden desempeñar un papel en la defensa nacional, ya que ciertos extractos de hongos demuestran ser altamente activos contra virus como el del sarampión y la gripe.
• 🐜 Los hongos entomopatógenos pueden ser utilizados para controlar plagas insectiles, como las hormigas carpinteras, sin necesidad de productos químicos tóxicos.
• 🌱 El 'Life Box' es una invención que permite cultivar un bosque de crecimiento forestal a partir de una caja de cartón, utilizando hongos micorrizógenos y esporas.
• 🌿 El micelio puede convertir la celulosa en azúcares fungicos, lo que tiene implicaciones para la generación de biocombustibles como el etanol de manera más ecológica.
• 🌐 Se aboga por una nueva forma de pensar en la agricultura y la generación de energía, utilizando hongos y micelio como herramientas para restaurar el equilibrio ecológico y abordar crisis como el cambio climático.

Q & A

¿Qué es el '6X' mencionado al principio del discurso?

El '6X' se refiere a la sexta extinción masiva que está ocurriendo en la Tierra, una de las principales preocupaciones ambientales actuales.

¿Cuál es la importancia del micelio según el presentador?

El micelio es esencial porque mantiene unidos los suelos, descompone la materia orgánica, distribuye nutrientes entre las plantas y ayuda a restaurar ecosistemas degradados.

¿Qué es la 'micofobia' y cómo afecta la percepción de los hongos?

La micofobia es el miedo irracional a lo desconocido en relación a los hongos. Esta fobia hace que muchas personas desconfíen de los hongos y no aprovechen sus múltiples beneficios.

¿Cómo están relacionados los animales y los hongos a nivel biológico?

Tanto los animales como los hongos pertenecen al superreino 'opisthokonta' y comparten patógenos comunes, lo que significa que estamos más emparentados con los hongos que con otros reinos.

¿Qué ocurrió cuando el presentador y su equipo utilizaron micelio para limpiar suelos contaminados con petróleo?

El micelio absorbió el petróleo y lo descompuso, transformándolo en carbohidratos fúngicos. Esto atrajo insectos, los cuales trajeron semillas y generaron una nueva área de vida, mientras que las demás pilas de prueba quedaron estériles.

¿Cómo propone el micelio combatir el problema de las bacterias coliformes en los ecosistemas?

El micelio de ciertos hongos puede reducir drásticamente la cantidad de bacterias coliformes, como E. coli, en tan solo 48 a 72 horas, lo que lo convierte en una herramienta poderosa para la restauración de hábitats.

¿Por qué el hongo Agarikon es relevante para la salud humana?

El hongo Agarikon, exclusivo de los bosques viejos, ha mostrado ser muy activo contra virus como la viruela y la gripe, lo que lo convierte en un recurso potencialmente importante para la medicina.

¿Qué descubrimiento hizo el presentador en relación con hongos que matan insectos?

El presentador descubrió que al alterar el micelio para que no produzca esporas, los hongos pueden atraer insectos, matarlos y prevenir futuras infestaciones, ofreciendo una solución ecológica para controlar plagas.

¿Qué es la 'Life Box' y cómo podría ayudar a reforestar?

La 'Life Box' es una caja de cartón con micelio y esporas de hongos que, al añadir tierra y agua, permite el crecimiento de árboles, lo que podría contribuir a la reforestación y la creación de huellas ecológicas.

¿Qué es 'Econol' y cómo podría solucionar la crisis energética?

'Econol' es una propuesta para generar etanol a partir de celulosa utilizando micelio, lo que aprovecharía el poder de los hongos para convertir materiales vegetales en combustible de manera ecológica.

Outlines

00:00

🌿 La solución micológica para salvar la Tierra

El orador comienza expresando su amor por los desafíos y se centra en la importancia de salvar la Tierra, reconociendo que estamos en la sexta extinción masiva. Sugiere la existencia de una 'Uh-Oh', una organización hipotética de organismos con derecho al voto, para ilustrar la percepción de los seres humanos en la naturaleza. Luego, introduce seis soluciones basadas en hongos y su mycelio, destacando su capacidad para unir el paisaje, retener suelos y actuar como disolutores moleculares en la naturaleza. Explica cómo el mycelio facilita la transferencia de nutrientes entre plantas y cómo los hongos crecen rápidamente y producen antibióticos. Finalmente, desafía la mycofobia, el miedo irracional a los hongos, y subraya la relación cercana entre humanos y hongos, sugiriendo que los hongos podrían ser claves en la lucha por la supervivencia de la Tierra.

05:02

🍄 Los hongos y la generación de suelos

El orador habla sobre la historia de los hongos en la Tierra, mencionando que fueron los primeros organismos en colonizar el continente hace 1.3 mil millones de años, mucho antes que las plantas. Explica cómo el mycelio produce ácidos que roten las rocas y forman sales de calcio, contribuyendo a la generación de suelos. También menciona el descubrimiento de Prototaxites, un hongo gigante que existió hace 420 millones de años, y cómo los hongos se adaptaron y prosperaron después de eventos de extinción, incluyendo el impacto de un asteroide hace 65 millones de años. Además, comparte un experimento en el que el mycelio se utilizó para limpiar sustancias tóxicas y petróleo, demostrando su capacidad para transformar hidrocarburos en carbohidratos y revitalizar un área con vida.

10:04

🌳 Los hongos y la salud del planeta

El orador continúa explorando las propiedades de ciertos hongos, como Fomitopsis officinalis (Agarikon), que crece exclusivamente en bosques antiguos y tiene propiedades medicinales. Describe la importancia de preservar estos hongos por su valor para la salud humana y cómo ciertos extractos de hongos han demostrado ser activos contra virus como el de la viruela y el influenza. Además, habla sobre su trabajo con hongos entomopatógenos, que matan insectos, y cómo logró crear un sistema para proteger su casa de las hormigas carpinteras y termitas. Presenta su invención, la 'Caja de Vida', que es una forma de usar el mycelio y otros hongos para crear un sistema de cultivo sostenible y ecológico.

15:08

🌱 Innovaciones con hongos para el futuro sostenible

El orador concluye su presentación con una visión de cómo los hongos pueden ser utilizados en el futuro para abordar desafíos globales. Describe su invención Econol, un proceso para producir etanol a partir de celulosa utilizando mycelio como intermediario, y cómo esto puede ser una solución sostenible a la crisis energética. También habla sobre la posibilidad de transformar los envases de cartón en 'huellas ecológicas', promoviendo la regeneración del suelo y la captura de carbono. Finalmente, insta a la audiencia a unirse a la causa de salvar la Tierra mediante la colaboración con los hongos y la adopción de prácticas 'econológicamente inteligentes'.

Keywords

💡micelio

El micelio es la parte vegetativa de un hongo, compuesta por una red de hifas filamentosas. En el video, el micelio se describe como una red fundamental para la naturaleza, que conecta organismos y permite el intercambio de nutrientes entre plantas. También se compara con el Internet de la Tierra debido a su estructura interconectada y su capacidad para transmitir información.

💡extinción masiva

El término 'extinción masiva' se refiere a eventos en los que una gran cantidad de especies desaparecen en un corto período de tiempo. En el video, se menciona que la Tierra está experimentando su sexta extinción masiva, un contexto que resalta la urgencia de buscar soluciones innovadoras, como las basadas en hongos, para preservar el planeta.

💡micosoluciones

Las micosoluciones son las propuestas basadas en hongos presentadas en el video para abordar problemas ambientales. Estas soluciones incluyen la remediación de suelos contaminados, la restauración de hábitats y el uso de hongos para producir biocombustibles. El presentador muestra cómo los hongos pueden transformar desechos tóxicos en fuentes de vida.

💡hongos entomopatógenos

Los hongos entomopatógenos son aquellos que infectan y matan a los insectos. El video menciona cómo estos hongos pueden ser utilizados para controlar plagas como las hormigas carpinteras y las termitas. Esta solución es innovadora porque aprovecha el ciclo natural del hongo para erradicar plagas sin el uso de pesticidas químicos dañinos.

💡Agarikon

El Agarikon es un hongo raro y medicinal que crece en bosques antiguos, mencionado en el video por su potencial para combatir virus peligrosos como la viruela y el virus de la gripe. El orador subraya la importancia de preservar estos hongos para la salud humana, ya que podrían ofrecer soluciones a futuras pandemias.

💡Prototaxites

El Prototaxites es un hongo gigante prehistórico mencionado en el video. Existió hace más de 400 millones de años y fue una de las primeras formas de vida que colonizó la Tierra antes de la aparición de las plantas. Este hongo es un ejemplo de cómo los hongos jugaron un papel clave en la creación de suelos y la transformación del planeta.

💡biodegradación

La biodegradación es el proceso mediante el cual los hongos, como el micelio, descomponen materiales orgánicos. En el video, se muestra cómo los hongos pueden descomponer hidrocarburos y otros contaminantes en productos más seguros, ayudando en la limpieza de derrames de petróleo y en la restauración de áreas contaminadas.

💡carbono

El carbono es un elemento esencial en los procesos biológicos. En el video, se explica cómo los hongos y el micelio pueden ayudar a secuestrar dióxido de carbono, transformándolo en compuestos como oxalatos de calcio. Este proceso contribuye a la formación de suelos y a la captura de carbono, lo que es crucial para mitigar el cambio climático.

💡Internet de la Tierra

El 'Internet de la Tierra' es una metáfora utilizada en el video para describir cómo el micelio actúa como una red de comunicación natural en el ecosistema. Al igual que Internet, el micelio conecta distintos organismos y les permite intercambiar nutrientes e información, demostrando la inteligencia innata de los sistemas naturales.

💡esporulación

La esporulación es el proceso por el cual los hongos producen esporas para su reproducción. En el video, se explica cómo las esporas son liberadas por los hongos, germinan y forman micelio, lo que ayuda a mantener la salud de los ecosistemas al generar nuevos ciclos de vida. Este proceso es clave para la regeneración natural y la sostenibilidad ambiental.

Highlights

The Earth has entered the sixth major extinction, known as the '6X,' highlighting the urgency of global environmental action.

Fungi, through mycelium, play a critical role in soil formation and nutrient transfer between plants, making them essential to Earth's ecosystems.

Mycelium, described as Earth's 'natural Internet,' demonstrates advanced communication and nutrient-sharing capabilities, mirroring the structure of digital networks.

Fungi are responsible for producing powerful antibiotics, and humans share many pathogens with fungi, making them a vital resource for medicine.

The largest organism in the world is a 2,200-acre mycelial mat in Eastern Oregon, demonstrating fungi's ability to thrive and support ecosystems on a massive scale.

Fungi helped colonize land 1.3 billion years ago, breaking down rocks to form soil through the production of oxalic acids, an important step for life on Earth.

Experiments showed that fungi can break down hydrocarbons in contaminated soils, transforming toxic waste into ecosystems that promote plant and insect life.

Fungi can reduce coliform bacteria by 10,000 times in just 48 to 72 hours, showing their potential for cleaning up environmental pollutants.

Agarikon mushrooms, found in old-growth forests, have shown strong antiviral activity against poxviruses and flu viruses, highlighting the importance of preserving natural fungal species.

Fungi that kill insects, like carpenter ants, can be used as a natural alternative to chemical pesticides, offering a sustainable solution to pest control.

The Life Box concept allows people to grow plants and trees from mycelium-enriched cardboard boxes, creating opportunities for ecological restoration through simple materials.

Mycelium can convert cellulose into fungal sugars, which can be used to produce ethanol, offering a more sustainable method for generating biofuels.

Fungi's ability to sequester carbon dioxide by forming calcium oxalates from rocks positions them as key players in reducing atmospheric carbon levels.

Giant fungi like Prototaxites, which grew up to three feet tall, dominated Earth's landscape 420 million years ago, demonstrating the ancient impact of fungi on ecosystems.

The discovery that fungi can use radiation as a source of energy suggests that fungi could exist in extreme environments, possibly even on other planets.

Transcripts

I love a challenge, and saving the Earth is probably a good one.

We all know the Earth is in trouble.

We have now entered in the 6X,

the sixth major extinction on this planet.

I often wondered, if there was a United Organization of Organisms --

otherwise known as "Uh-Oh" --

(Laughter) -- and every organism had a right to vote,

would we be voted on the planet, or off the planet?

I think that vote is occurring right now.

I want to present to you a suite of six mycological solutions,

using fungi, and these solutions are based on mycelium.

The mycelium infuses all landscapes,

it holds soils together, it's extremely tenacious.

This holds up to 30,000 times its mass.

They're the grand molecular disassemblers of nature -- the soil magicians.

They generate the humus soils across the landmasses of Earth.

We have now discovered that there is a multi-directional transfer

of nutrients between plants, mitigated by the mcyelium --

so the mycelium is the mother

that is giving nutrients from alder and birch trees

to hemlocks, cedars and Douglas firs.

Dusty and I, we like to say, on Sunday, this is where we go to church.

I'm in love with the old-growth forest,

and I'm a patriotic American because we have those.

Most of you are familiar with Portobello mushrooms.

And frankly, I face a big obstacle.

When I mention mushrooms to somebody,

they immediately think Portobellos or magic mushrooms,

their eyes glaze over, and they think I'm a little crazy.

So, I hope to pierce that prejudice forever with this group.

We call it mycophobia,

the irrational fear of the unknown, when it comes to fungi.

Mushrooms are very fast in their growth.

Day 21, day 23, day 25.

Mushrooms produce strong antibiotics.

In fact, we're more closely related to fungi than we are to any other kingdom.

A group of 20 eukaryotic microbiologists

published a paper two years ago erecting opisthokonta --

a super-kingdom that joins animalia and fungi together.

We share in common the same pathogens.

Fungi don't like to rot from bacteria,

and so our best antibiotics come from fungi.

But here is a mushroom that's past its prime.

After they sporulate, they do rot.

But I propose to you that the sequence of microbes

that occur on rotting mushrooms

are essential for the health of the forest.

They give rise to the trees,

they create the debris fields that feed the mycelium.

And so we see a mushroom here sporulating.

And the spores are germinating,

and the mycelium forms and goes underground.

In a single cubic inch of soil, there can be more than eight miles of these cells.

My foot is covering approximately 300 miles of mycelium.

This is photomicrographs from Nick Read and Patrick Hickey.

And notice that as the mycelium grows,

it conquers territory and then it begins the net.

I've been a scanning electron microscopist for many years,

I have thousands of electron micrographs,

and when I'm staring at the mycelium,

I realize that they are microfiltration membranes.

We exhale carbon dioxide, so does mycelium.

It inhales oxygen, just like we do.

But these are essentially externalized stomachs and lungs.

And I present to you a concept that these are extended neurological membranes.

And in these cavities, these micro-cavities form,

and as they fuse soils, they absorb water.

These are little wells.

And inside these wells, then microbial communities begin to form.

And so the spongy soil not only resists erosion,

but sets up a microbial universe

that gives rise to a plurality of other organisms.

I first proposed, in the early 1990s,

that mycelium is Earth's natural Internet.

When you look at the mycelium, they're highly branched.

And if there's one branch that is broken, then very quickly,

because of the nodes of crossing --

Internet engineers maybe call them hot points --

there are alternative pathways for channeling nutrients and information.

The mycelium is sentient.

It knows that you are there.

When you walk across landscapes,

it leaps up in the aftermath of your footsteps trying to grab debris.

So, I believe the invention of the computer Internet

is an inevitable consequence

of a previously proven, biologically successful model.

The Earth invented the computer Internet for its own benefit,

and we now, being the top organism on this planet,

are trying to allocate resources in order to protect the biosphere.

Going way out, dark matter conforms to the same mycelial archetype.

I believe matter begets life;

life becomes single cells; single cells become strings;

strings become chains; chains network.

And this is the paradigm that we see throughout the universe.

Most of you may not know that fungi were the first organisms to come to land.

They came to land 1.3 billion years ago,

and plants followed several hundred million years later.

How is that possible?

It's possible because the mycelium produces oxalic acids,

and many other acids and enzymes,

pockmarking rock and grabbing calcium and other minerals

and forming calcium oxalates.

Makes the rocks crumble, and the first step in the generation of soil.

Oxalic acid is two carbon dioxide molecules joined together.

So, fungi and mycelium

sequester carbon dioxide in the form of calcium oxalates.

And all sorts of other oxalates

are also sequestering carbon dioxide through the minerals

that are being formed and taken out of the rock matrix.

This was first discovered in 1859.

This is a photograph by Franz Hueber.

This photograph's taken 1950s in Saudi Arabia.

420 million years ago, this organism existed.

It was called Prototaxites.

Prototaxites, laying down, was about three feet tall.

The tallest plants on Earth at that time were less than two feet.

Dr. Boyce, at the University of Chicago,

published an article in the Journal of Geology

this past year determining that Prototaxites was a giant fungus,

a giant mushroom.

Across the landscapes of Earth were dotted these giant mushrooms.

All across most land masses.

And these existed for tens of millions of years.

Now, we've had several extinction events, and as we march forward --

65 million years ago -- most of you know about it --

we had an asteroid impact.

The Earth was struck by an asteroid,

a huge amount of debris was jettisoned into the atmosphere.

Sunlight was cut off, and fungi inherited the Earth.

Those organisms that paired with fungi were rewarded,

because fungi do not need light.

More recently, at Einstein University,

they just determined that fungi use radiation as a source of energy,

much like plants use light.

So, the prospect of fungi existing on other planets elsewhere,

I think, is a forgone conclusion,

at least in my own mind.

The largest organism in the world is in Eastern Oregon.

I couldn't miss it. It was 2,200 acres in size:

2,200 acres in size, 2,000 years old.

The largest organism on the planet is a mycelial mat, one cell wall thick.

How is it that this organism can be so large,

and yet be one cell wall thick,

whereas we have five or six skin layers that protect us?

The mycelium, in the right conditions, produces a mushroom --

it bursts through with such ferocity that it can break asphalt.

We were involved with several experiments.

I'm going to show you six, if I can,

solutions for helping to save the world.

Battelle Laboratories and I joined up in Bellingham, Washington.

There were four piles saturated with diesel and other petroleum waste:

one was a control pile; one pile was treated with enzymes;

one pile was treated with bacteria;

and our pile we inoculated with mushroom mycelium.

The mycelium absorbs the oil.

The mycelium is producing enzymes --

peroxidases -- that break carbon-hydrogen bonds.

These are the same bonds that hold hydrocarbons together.

So, the mycelium becomes saturated with the oil,

and then, when we returned six weeks later,

all the tarps were removed,

all the other piles were dead, dark and stinky.

We came back to our pile, it was covered

with hundreds of pounds of oyster mushrooms,

and the color changed to a light form.

The enzymes remanufactured the hydrocarbons

into carbohydrates -- fungal sugars.

Some of these mushrooms are very happy mushrooms.

They're very large.

They're showing how much nutrition that they could've obtained.

But something else happened, which was an epiphany in my life.

They sporulated, the spores attract insects,

the insects laid eggs, eggs became larvae.

Birds then came, bringing in seeds,

and our pile became an oasis of life.

Whereas the other three piles were dead, dark and stinky,

and the PAH's -- the aromatic hydrocarbons --

went from 10,000 parts per million to less than 200 in eight weeks.

The last image we don't have.

The entire pile was a green berm of life.

These are gateway species,

vanguard species that open the door for other biological communities.

So I invented burlap sacks, bunker spawn --

and putting the mycelium -- using storm blown debris,

you can take these burlap sacks and put them downstream

from a farm that's producing E. coli, or other wastes,

or a factory with chemical toxins,

and it leads to habitat restoration.

So, we set up a site in Mason County, Washington,

and we've seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of coliforms.

And I'll show you a graph here.

This is a logarithmic scale, 10 to the eighth power.

There's more than a 100 million colonies per gram,

and 10 to the third power is around 1,000.

In 48 hours to 72 hours, these three mushroom species

reduced the amount of coliform bacteria 10,000 times.

Think of the implications.

This is a space-conservative method that uses storm debris --

and we can guarantee that we will have storms every year.

So, this one mushroom, in particular, has drawn our interest over time.

This is my wife Dusty,

with a mushroom called Fomitopsis officinalis -- Agarikon.

It's a mushroom exclusive to the old-growth forest

that Dioscorides first described in 65 A.D.

as a treatment against consumption.

This mushroom grows in Washington State, Oregon,

northern California, British Columbia, now thought to be extinct in Europe.

May not seem that large --

let's get closer.

This is extremely rare fungus.

Our team -- and we have a team of experts that go out --

we went out 20 times in the old-growth forest last year.

We found one sample to be able to get into culture.

Preserving the genome of these fungi in the old-growth forest

I think is absolutely critical for human health.

I've been involved with the U.S. Defense Department BioShield program.

We submitted over 300 samples of mushrooms that were boiled in hot water,

and mycelium harvesting these extracellular metabolites.

And a few years ago,

we received these results.

We have three different strains of Agarikon mushrooms

that were highly active against poxviruses.

Dr. Earl Kern, who's a smallpox expert

of the U.S. Defense Department, states that any compounds

that have a selectivity index of two or more are active.

10 or greater are considered to be very active.

Our mushroom strains were in the highly active range.

There's a vetted press release that you can read --

it's vetted by DOD --

if you Google "Stamets" and "smallpox."

Or you can go to NPR.org and listen to a live interview.

So, encouraged by this, naturally we went to flu viruses.

And so, for the first time, I am showing this.

We have three different strains of Agarikon mushrooms

highly active against flu viruses.

Here's the selectivity index numbers --

against pox, you saw 10s and 20s -- now against flu viruses,

compared to the ribavirin controls,

we have an extraordinarily high activity.

And we're using a natural extract

within the same dosage window as a pure pharmaceutical.

We tried it against flu A viruses -- H1N1, H3N2 --

as well as flu B viruses.

So then we tried a blend,

and in a blend combination we tried it against H5N1,

and we got greater than 1,000 selectivity index.

(Applause)

I then think that we can make the argument

that we should save the old-growth forest

as a matter of national defense.

(Applause)

I became interested in entomopathogenic fungi --

fungi that kill insects.

Our house was being destroyed by carpenter ants.

So, I went to the EPA homepage, and they were recommending studies

with metarhizium species of a group of fungi

that kill carpenter ants, as well as termites.

I did something that nobody else had done.

I actually chased the mycelium, when it stopped producing spores.

These are spores -- this is in their spores.

I was able to morph the culture

into a non-sporulating form.

And so the industry has spent over 100 million dollars

specifically on bait stations to prevent termites from eating your house.

But the insects aren't stupid,

and they would avoid the spores when they came close,

and so I morphed the cultures into a non-sporulating form.

And I got my daughter's Barbie doll dish,

I put it right where a bunch of carpenter ants

were making debris fields, every day,

in my house, and the ants were attracted to the mycelium,

because there's no spores.

They gave it to the queen.

One week later, I had no sawdust piles whatsoever.

And then -- a delicate dance between dinner and death --

the mycelium is consumed by the ants,

they become mummified, and, boing, a mushroom pops out of their head.

(Laughter)

Now after sporulation, the spores repel.

So, the house is no longer suitable for invasion.

So, you have a near-permanent solution for reinvasion of termites.

And so my house came down, I received my first patent

against carpenter ants, termites and fire ants.

Then we tried extracts, and lo and behold,

we can steer insects to different directions.

This has huge implications.

I then received my second patent -- and this is a big one.

It's been called an Alexander Graham Bell patent.

It covers over 200,000 species.

This is the most disruptive technology --

I've been told by executives of the pesticide industry --

that they have ever witnessed.

This could totally revamp the pesticide industries throughout the world.

You could fly 100 Ph.D. students under the umbrella of this concept,

because my supposition is that entomopathogenic fungi,

prior to sporulation, attract the very insects

that are otherwise repelled by those spores.

And so I came up with a Life Box, because I needed a delivery system.

The Life Box -- you're gonna be getting a DVD of the TED conference --

you add soil, you add water,

you have mycorrhizal and endophytic fungi as well as spores,

like of the Agarikon mushroom.

The seeds then are mothered by this mycelium.

And then you put tree seeds in here,

and then you end up growing -- potentially --

an old-growth forest from a cardboard box.

I want to reinvent the delivery system,

and the use of cardboard around the world,

so they become ecological footprints.

If there's a YouTube-like site that you could put up,

you could make it interactive, zip code specific --

where people could join together,

and through satellite imaging systems,

through Virtual Earth or Google Earth,

you could confirm carbon credits are being sequestered

by the trees that are coming through Life Boxes.

You could take a cardboard box delivering shoes,

you could add water -- I developed this for the refugee community --

corns, beans and squash and onions.

I took several containers -- my wife said, if I could do this, anybody could --

and I ended up growing a seed garden.

Then you harvest the seeds --

and thank you, Eric Rasmussen, for your help on this --

and then you're harvesting the seed garden.

Then you can harvest the kernels, and then you just need a few kernels.

I add mycelium to it, and then I inoculate the corncobs.

Now, three corncobs, no other grain --

lots of mushrooms begin to form.

Too many withdrawals from the carbon bank,

and so this population will be shut down.

But watch what happens here.

The mushrooms then are harvested,

but very importantly,

the mycelium has converted the cellulose into fungal sugars.

And so I thought, how could we address the energy crisis in this country?

And we came up with Econol.

Generating ethanol from cellulose using mycelium as an intermediary --

and you gain all the benefits that I've described to you already.

But to go from cellulose to ethanol is ecologically unintelligent,

and I think that we need to be econologically intelligent

about the generation of fuels.

So, we build the carbon banks on the planet, renew the soils.

These are a species that we need to join with.

I think engaging mycelium can help save the world.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)