Also, checked my email, posted here, and posted on a clan.chem/underground biotech forum, in a thread or two I am following of late, one on ergot fungi, and the efforts made by the others working
on a Claviceps biotech R&D program in their labs. The other thread being also directed towards development of, selection for, and storage/maintainance longterm whilst retaining vitality and stability of
Some non-ergot Clavicipitaceous fungi that form a part of those fungi classed as endophytes. These grow inside plants, such as the morning glories, ololiuqui (the name in the nahuatl tongue, spoken by the aztecs to the seeds of another morning glory relative used like the others for shamanic practice, as a hallucinogen, due to the lysergic acid amide (ergine, LSA) found in the seeds, produced by the fungal endophyte, which is transmitted down the line from parent to offspring of the plants by virtue of its being hosted within the seeds.
hawaiian baby woodrose (argyria nervosa [spelling?]) and grasses like Paspalum, Lolium, Stipa, 'dronkgrass' and fescues (Festuca arundinacea), as symbionts which actually dwell within, rather than on the outside of, their hosts, although
doing the host little harm, indeed, the opposite, considering the toxicity towards insect predators, and indeed, quite problematically, to livestock causing much loss and sickness amongst same every year, of the host of ergot alkaloids, usually a mixture of ergine and ergovaline, although it depends not only on the grass species hosting the endophytic clavicipitaceous fungi, but also upon the epiphyte species hosted,
the strain/s present, hell probably even the weather, climate and habitat, such is not unknown in fungi, fr ex some people, for some stupid reason, choose to eat a kind of ascomycete mushroom known as
a false morel or lorchel (Gyromitra spp. usually G.esculenta.) These are lethally poisonous raw, and indeed, not infrequently even when cooked twice in boiling water, discarding the water each time, before blanching and then cooking to incorporate
them into a dish.
Really, really really stupid thing to do, its on similar level of idiocy attached to the consumption in japan of fugu, the imfamous puffer fish sushi, which needs years of special dedicated training to be able to prepare it from the fish. The japanese fugu chefs spend several years learning and practicing. When they have done so, and have reached the end of their training period, theres an exam. This consists of
an aspiring fugu chef doing just that, preparing some blowfish, carefully removing the skin, the ovaries, liver in particular, without contaminating the rest of the fish (the poison, a paralytic agent that works by blocking voltage-gated sodium channels, called tetrodotoxin, or TTX for short, also found in Taricha spp. red bellied newts, certain toads (Atelopus is the one I know of) and also it plays the role
of the primary toxic component in the venomous bite packed by the tiny, pretty, but deadly blue ringed octopi (Hapalochlaena species, theres a few, 3-4 or so of the buggers, with bodies rarely larger than a golf ball, if one excludes the tentacles, but able to deliver a bite capable of penetrating a dive suit like a bullet through tissue paper, and delivering enough venom with its bite to finish off a person bitten many, many times over)
The chefs must prepare their dish before the examiner. And then they must consume what they prepared. If they survive doing so, then they qualify to make it to be served to other people. Presumably dying means a fail, and no leniency in being allowed to resit the examination
The false morels are no better. Probably worse come to think of it, because unlike blowfish where their toxicity is localized (mostly, not completely) to certain tissue types and locations in the fish, there is no such compartmentalization in a false morel, all parts are dangerous. And they are EXTREMELY unpredictable, season, elevation of terrain growing on, habitat type, resources available etc.
And whats more people vary a lot in their ability to withstand small quantities of the toxin, gyromitrin, which essentially is just a precursor that releases the main, true bad actor, monomethyl hydrazine, or MMH, the same stuff thats used as the fuel component in hypergolic rocket fuels (hypergolic means self-igniting when the oxidizer is mixed, without having to be lit, just going up on its own. Typical use is MMH and N2O4, dinitrogen tetroxide, which is one hell of a powerful oxidizing agent). So the fungus quite literally, is full of rocket fuel. Rather nasty stuff it is too, volatile, and boiling off when cooked, sometimes those eating them will be fine, because the MMH was boiled off during cooking, only to be breathed in by, and so poison the cooks, sometimes its been the chef thats died and the diners remained unharmed.
Personally, I wouldn't even get in a car with a significant quantity of Gyromitra, perhaps if all the windows were open. Otherwise I'd not take the risk.
Yet believe it or not, hundreds of tons of false morels go through certain EU countries annually, particularly popular in finnland.
What else have I done today? not a huge lot. Slept most of today, although woke up to stuff several packet of 'timeout' chocolate wafer bars down my neck, and loaded up dosbox on the laptop to get my x-com terror from the deep game going. A two part scifi type job, part world management, part research and manufacture of equipment, the vehicles and automated tanks more advanced than the basic starting models of tank, interceptor combat aircraft and troop transport, the rest consisting of tactical missions directed against either landed alien craft, those that have been shot out of the sky, or down to the bottom of davy jones' locker (the enemy being fought is a multispecies/multiracial alien force thats been dormant for millennia in a vast submerged city, that obviously pays homage to H P Lovecraft's r'lyeh, both in similar sounding name (t'leth) and one of the races that can appear in combat missions, based on abducted and surgically mutilated, heavily modified former human beings is even named 'deep ones' xD
And theres other such situations that you have to send your combat divers on, such as smaller submerged alien bases, sites where they are attempting to reactivate dormant technology that sustains/makes their hive-mind type thing, as well as psionic combat capabilities, or sometimes they attack land targets, such as naval ports, or launch terrorist attacks on civilian populations intended to try and force the host countries to cut or terminate funding for the combat taskforce your running 'x-com', abduct more civillians, and just all round slaughter as much of the population as possible, to clear the earth for takeover.
Its an old game, 1995-'98 or thereabouts, the original two in the xcom game series (TFTD is the second) were by microprose, released in the 1990s, and a total shit to get running at first using a more modern
and shittier OS like windoze 7. It didn't like 64-bit operating system, didn't play well with compatibility, in the end I had to reinstall it under admin privilege running the installer itself in windows 95 legacy compatibility mode, then run the program thus installed under compatibility emulation, within dosbox. That eventually got it working. General theme of the combat part is turn-based isometric, controlling a squad of up to 14 troops per mission, until one gets better troop transport based on reverse engineering captured alien tech.
Its old, sure, but one hell of a game, and difficult to beat at even the lowest difficulty setting, takes a long, long time to beat it too.
