Mycologist Paul Stamets believes that mushrooms could be an intergalactic colonizing species. Well, almost.
He believes that fungi, and particularly the mycelium (the vegetative part of mushrooms) contains solutions for some of the Earth’s environmental and health-related problems. For instance, fungi produce strong antibiotics; they can be used against flu viruses; mycelium can be used to naturally “clean up” petroleum-saturated soils; revamp pesticides; and generate ethanol (he has patented many of these mushroom-related technologies). Preserving the genome of fungi is absolutely crucial for human health.