Ghost Fungus

I innoculated some tiny mason jars full of crushed birdseed and vermiculite (n' pressure cooked to kill bacteria) with some Ghost Fungus spores ^_^

I'm gonna have glow n' the dark mushyrooms. Sorry, you can't eat these, they'd be toxic, but they bioluminesce a really pretty green in low light or darkness. I'm curious to see how well they react to a little burnt car oil. Now that I understand how fungus can break down things like oil within soil and using it for fuel, I'm interested in taking a novel, non-edible strain like Ghost Fungus and mixing burnt car oil within soil. Once the mushrooms have lived, loved and moved on to being compost, I'm really curious to see what the soil contaims will be like. How well can mycoremediated soil support agriculture (or can it, or how many mycoremediation sessions would it take to make this bad soil, super enriched soil).

This stuff, weird as it is to most people, is actually fun to me. Plus, think of the applications! America is mostly an agricultural nation, yet mycologists are a rarer breed- meaning they're more in demand perhaps? Especially when they can show great results.

YAY! Safer nuclear power and we get to ***** slap the oil companies, hurray! I like that application.

Once I've run two trials of this ghost fungus and take some soil samples, if the soil is clean enough I'd like to introduce some red wiggler worms into the soil and entice birds with some birdseed (which would sprout and yay we have regeneration of an ecosystem). I think it will take a number of years to find the perfect strain for breaking down petroleum based products, but what I am interested in most of all is... once I've mastered the destruction of oil, I can focus on more toxic waste. With that much experience, perhaps my gov't will let me destroy something radioactive ^_^

Considering how close I live to DC, it would behoove me to find a strain of fungus that is healthy (or harmless) to humans but absolutely loves solar based radioactivity. This could lead to protection from ICBM's, dirty bombs or just help process toxic waste from nuclear power plants. Plus there's still a LOT of nuclear waste from yet to be unarmed and unarmed nuclear warheads. Mostly in the US and Russia. Most of this waste, at our technological level, is simply unredeemable. There is nothing we know how to do with it (other than dump it). Destroying these things would help lead to world peace, a more stable ecosystem and perhaps even a coping method for the idea of a nuclear attack. I doubt a little gardening could do much good to deter a nuclear attack, but in the event, the fallout would be dramatically reduced if countries had a fungal aid to help the fallout disappear, and stay gone. Its not a solution for nuclear attacks, but it does offer to weaken the punch of such a weapon. Cool huh? I bet nuclear fallout would make Ghost Fungus glow brighter! Let's not find out though : x