TED talk on mushrooms and other fungi

Paul Stamets, a mycologist, offers thoughts and speculation on how fungi can be used to solve a variety of problems. He's not a particularly fluent speaker, but his data are quite impressive. He notes that humans are more closely related to fungi than to other kingdoms, and that we share suseptibility to the same pathogens - that's why antibiotics derived from fungi are useful in treating human diseases. He presents data on the use of fungi to treat oil spills and recycle other toxic wastes and the usefulness of fungi as pesticides.*

The Guardian had a most interesting piece last month on the rising popularity of lectures as public entertainment (and the potentially lucrative financial aspects of the business).

A decade ago, a scientist, a policy wonk or a writer with a big idea would publish it in books and articles; now they also take to the road and talk about it - in lectures, debates and book readings. The talk is turning into a performing art; the intellectual is becoming a stage act...

But perhaps the biggest talk event happens next month, when an American organisation called TED holds a four-day conference in Oxford. Up to 60 lecturers will speak for precisely 18 minutes each on subjects ranging from the eastern European mafia to whether solar-powered aeroplanes will ever (ahem) take off. Tickets are going for £2,750 each (although the hard-up get a £1,225 concessionary rate) and only 30 of the 700 are left...

*Dave and Lan, you might want to review this re your research.