Leafcutter ants are sensitive enough to recognise the reaction of the fungus to different plant material, apparently detecting chemical signals from the fungus.

It appears that the fungus alters the behaviour of the ant to help disperse its spores in a microhabitat that best suits the fungus.

Fungus growing ants that make up the tribe Attini, including leafcutter ants, cultivate certain species of fungus in the Leucoagaricus or Leucocoprinus genera of the Agaricaceae family.

Pullulan is produced from starch by the fungus Aureobasidium pullulans .

The fungus kills the ants, grows on their remains, and produces a fruiting body.

So with the help of some biologists studying the fungus, I got some maps and some GPS coordinates and chartered a plane and started looking for the death rings, the circular patterns in which the fungus kills the trees.

The largest ants cut stalks, smaller workers chew the leaves and the smallest tend the fungus.

And feet in the water will develop fungus, infections, and that infection pains because then other insects bite that point.

The other was a type of tinder fungus, included with part of what appeared to be a complex firestarting kit.

In horses it is also known as recurrent airway obstruction and is typically due to an allergic reaction to a fungus contained in straw.

Here you see a typical cucumber leaf that turned actually from green to black because of a black fungus, sooty mold, which is covering it.

Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens and the environment.

It's also more benignly known as the honey mushroom or the humongous fungus because it happens to be one of the world's largest organisms as well.

Some organic acid tests check for the presence of D arabitol, which may indicate overgrowth of intestinal microbes such as Candida albicans or other yeast fungus species.

Dr. Boyce, at the University of Chicago, published an article in the Journal of Geology this past year determining that Prototaxites was a giant fungus, a giant mushroom.

The ant Allomerus decemarticulatus has evolved a three way association with the host plant, Hirtella physophora (Chrysobalanaceae), and a sticky fungus which is used to trap their insect prey.

At the time of this writing, he still defends the validity of his work, while admitting human errors in the preservation of the stem cell lines, including contamination by a fungus.

Mycologist Paul Stamets lists 6 ways the mycelium fungus can help save the universe cleaning polluted soil, making insecticides, treating smallpox and even flu ... a href http www.ted.com index.php speakers view id 229 target _blank Read more a .

They have their own tests, of course, and so they tested her for over 70 different assays, for every sort of bacteria and fungus and viral assay you can buy off the shelf SARS, metapneumovirus, HIV, RSV all these.

So that white material that you see in between the bark and the wood is the mycelial felt of the fungus, and what it's doing it's actually slowly strangling the tree to death by preventing the flow of water and nutrients.

Courtesy of the fungus, ambrosia bark beetles are able to indirectly feed from many more species of trees than their evolutionary relatives that do not feed on fungi, by having the fungi do the work of overcoming the plants' chemical defenses.

If an intelligent extra terrestrial was taxed with writing the encyclopedia of life on our planet, 27 out of 30 of these volumes would be devoted to bacteria and virus, with just a few of the volumes left for plants, fungus and animals, humans being a footnote interesting footnote but a footnote nonetheless.

And the very first day that this fellow, John Allen, walked in, to spend a couple of days in there with all the plants and animals and bacteria that we'd put in there to hopefully keep him alive, the doctors were incredibly concerned that he was going to succumb to some dreadful toxin, or that his lungs were going to get choked with bacteria or something, fungus.