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What's On The Radio ...

steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
edited November 2020 in The potting shed
Anyone else listen(ed)ing to Entangled Life on Radio 4?
Zombie fungi anyone? Who'd be an ant?

'...Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and a writer. He received a Ph.D. in Tropical Ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He is a musician and keen fermenter. Entangled Life is his first book. In Episode 3 we learn how some fungi can infiltrate their host and make them behave entirely to the fungi’s advantage, killing the host in the process....'

Edited to add: A bit ghoulish, but this article goes into the same area:



UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
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  • strelitzia32strelitzia32 Posts: 758
    Fascinating stuff, thank you. I remember a pop sci piece by Chris Packham a while ago about some kind of larvae or worm that invades caterpillars, grows in their eyes, and also controls their movements. There are also arthropods that latch onto host fish, remove the fish's tongue, and replace it with themselves so they get a constant supply of food and protection. 

    Nature is quite incredible!
  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    You just get the impression that when we eventually fully understand the world (if that's ever possible) it will be weirder than any science fiction story. Fascinating though - and scary as Sheldrake starts off by talking the use of fungal derived drugs and, via the ants , went on to talk about the use of those drugs on the human mind.
    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    Only too true - science only ever knows what it knows at a point in time.
    'Standing on the shoulders of giants' has multiple meanings.
    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I'm going to have bad dreams about that tongue thing😟
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    What went through what's left of my mind was that we're starting to realise how important the bacteria etc are within our bodies, but how do we know that we're not being controlled like the ants? Does the micro-life that we all have inside us make humans act completely differently to what they would do 'normally'? I was just about to say - 'what the heck - we are what we are' - but is that the bacteria making me think that way? Who needs insane conspiracy theories about micro chips injected with vaccines? - nature does weirder stuff than that. Maybe midichlorians exist. Hail Lucas the prophet....

    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    There are theories that the gut microbiome may be a factor in the development of autism and other conditions.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    Just heard on Radio 4 that Singapore has approved the sale of lab grown meat. An American company is growing meat from stem cells in a lab.
    So, so many questions. Does this meat then ever live? And if it is classed as 'live' then what does that do to other definitions of 'live'? If it isn't 'live' and is just a bunch of chemicals (as meat is) - does that mean that it is in some way vegetarian? Could you create 'meat' (is it meat anyway?) from human stem cells? Is that cannibalism?
    Maybe the argument will be in the source of the stem cell - but if you trace the source of all things back to their building blocks, they're all the same.
    Things are moving so fast. Soylent Green came to mind for some reason.


    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    R4 - Soul Music - Bill (Still Bill) Withers' Lean On Me. Just brilliant.

    His Grandma's Hands (my kids sang that about my mum's arthritic hands!) and Ain't No Sunshine are well worth a listen.
    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    You beat me to it just listening now, walked away just because he didn't want them trying to control his life. 
    AB Still learning

  • LG_LG_ Posts: 4,360
    Often, @pansyface. When it first happened, my mum was still alive and I told her, so we compared hands. And it made me realise I had her hands from when I was a child, as the hands we compared were twisted with arthritis and I'd not seen the change.
    'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
    - Cicero
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