UN Backs New Term For Conservation Talks (theguardian.com) 33
The word "funga" should be used alongside flora and fauna when discussing conservation issues to reflect the importance of fungi to ecosystem health, a UN body has said. From a report: The secretariat of the UN convention on biological diversity (UNCBD) said it was time that fungi were "recognised and protected on an equal footing with animals and plants in legal conservation frameworks."
"Whenever referring to the macroscopic diversity of life on Earth, we should use 'flora, fauna and funga,' and 'animal, plants and fungi,'" it said in an Instagram post. Mycologists, mostly from Latin America, established the term "funga" five years ago. It refers to the levels of diversity of fungi in any given place, and is analogous to "flora and fauna," which refer to plants and animals. Unlike flora and fauna, it is not a Latin term but was chosen because it is morphologically similar. "Just like mycelium, mycologically inclusive language will spread unseen but profound [sic], permeating public consciousness (and policy) to acknowledge fungi's vital role in the grand web of life on and in Earth," it said.
"Whenever referring to the macroscopic diversity of life on Earth, we should use 'flora, fauna and funga,' and 'animal, plants and fungi,'" it said in an Instagram post. Mycologists, mostly from Latin America, established the term "funga" five years ago. It refers to the levels of diversity of fungi in any given place, and is analogous to "flora and fauna," which refer to plants and animals. Unlike flora and fauna, it is not a Latin term but was chosen because it is morphologically similar. "Just like mycelium, mycologically inclusive language will spread unseen but profound [sic], permeating public consciousness (and policy) to acknowledge fungi's vital role in the grand web of life on and in Earth," it said.
Finally we're addressing the pressing problems (Score:2, Funny)
I am sure the feelings of fungi have been hurt a lot by not being addressed by the correct nomenclature.
Unfair to single cells! (Score:1)
What about the bacteria and protozoa? Do you have to be multi-cellular to mentioned at the UN?
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There ought to be some representation for Archaea, They are, after all, an entire Domain of life.
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Well, the fungals have. Having historically been referred to by the gender specific "funguy".
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Sick (Score:3)
"Just like mycelium, mycologically inclusive language will spread unseen but profound [sic]
I think that's grammatically correct as-is. Unseen and profound modify language, not the verb spread. The spread is not profound, the new language is.
I would have separated it off with a comma after spread, though.
LOL (Score:3, Insightful)
Now even fungi are on the "Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity" woke train.
Hilarious.
Certainly nothing more important that the UN could be working on than making sure fungi are fairly represented in conversation.
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So are bacteria. ...there's a point at which trying to be SPECIFICALLY ACCURATE is counterproductive and frankly pedantic.
So are viruses.
So are protists.
Are you saying those AREN'T important?
Please, give me an example of a high level policy discussion in which - by their failure to explicitly mention fungi - there was some catastrophic mistake or even a circumstance in which fungi were somehow inconvenienced by the resulting conclusions? A SINGLE EXAMPLE.
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So are bacteria. So are viruses. So are protists. Are you saying those AREN'T important? ...
No, I'm not saying those aren't important. However, multicellular life is more obviously visible so easier to consider the preservation of on a practical level.
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In effect, you ARE (by your own measure) saying they aren't important enough to be mentioned.
You're deliberately saying fungi are worth mentioning but those others aren't.
If "mentioning them" isn't intrinsically important, then why is mentioning fungi explicitly particularly important?
I say "by your measure" because I do not think this is anything more than performative virtue signalling to some single-issue interest group that has a boner for fungi today.
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In effect, you ARE (by your own measure) saying they aren't important enough to be mentioned.
No, I'm not. Put words in your own mouth not mine.
Paul Stamets (Score:4, Informative)
For those interested, Paul Stamets [wikipedia.org] has done a lot of work with fungi of various stripe.
It turns out that fungi have a lot of interesting biological compounds, notably for combating cancer, and on that basis he was able to get a stretch of pacific forest switched over to conservation land in order to protect a specific, unusual fungus [wikipedia.org] on that basis.
As an example of his research, Paul noticed that wild bees would come to drink from one of his fungi cultivations (turkey tail [wikipedia.org], IIRC). He analyzed the liquid made by the fungi and discovered that it had strong antibiotic properties.
He's one of the very few non-PhD people listed as co-authors on biology scientific papers. His talks are pretty interesting.
From the Laricifomes Officinalis Wikipedia page:
Mycologist Paul Stamets has performed numerous investigations of the biological activities of Agarikon; its extracts have demonstrated antiviral activity against a range of viruses in vitro.[7] This activity has been specifically observed against pox family viruses,[12] HSV-1 and HSV-2, Influenza A, Influenza B, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis in vitro.
Other researchers have identified novel chlorinated coumarins in the organism which demonstrated notably low minimum inhibitory concentrations against the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex.
Re: Paul Stamets (Score:2)
Is this the same guy as the engineer on Star Trek Discovery who can travel the mycelial network, allowing instantaneous interstellar travel?
Other way around (Score:2)
Is this the same guy as the engineer on Star Trek Discovery who can travel the mycelial network, allowing instantaneous interstellar travel?
According to Wikipedia, the star trek character was named after the real-life Paul Stamets.
Cancer treatment (Score:4, Informative)
Be very careful with this info.
In one of his lectures [youtube.com], Paul recounts the story of his mom calling him up to say that she was going to die soon and would Paul come to see her in her last weeks - it turned out that she got cancer, treatment failed, it progressed to stage 4, and she didn't expect to live long.
Long story short, Paul had been studying cancer response to mushrooms and had an experimental supplement made of mushrooms that he thought was effective, he gave some to his mom, and it completely reversed the cancer.
He states categorically that he *cannot* sell his mushroom mixtures as a cure for cancer, and that this hasn't been vetted by the FDA as a treatment for cancer, but he does sell the mixture that his mom used online [fungi.com] for different reasons.
I post this in great caution, but in the public interest in that if you have an unsolvable issue concerning cancer, you *might* find the lecture and relevant products useful.
All the standard caveats, IANAD, this is a guy selling supplements on the internet, and I'm just relaying information I heard.
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At least it's a human - and a human who seems to know a bit about the field - behind this. I mean, it's not like the killer books written by an AI [slashdot.org] or anything like that.
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I don't believe it, but, if true, the FDA just caused magnitudes more deaths by delaying shit than it saved in 50 years. As predicted.
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Watch the documentary listed in that wikipedia link, Fantastic Fungi.
It's a little odd, but a very good film.
It's streaming on our arch enemy Netflix, though.
Headline misread. (Score:2)
I read "UN Backs New Term For Conservative Talk."
Then I start reading about fungus and thinking, "Well, this is a blatant trolling attempt."
Re-read the headline. "OH! That's different. Should only get about thirty percent of us pissed off with that headline."
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Shooting the wrong animal out of season is already a punishable offense. Also, if you are shooting, but you don't know what you're shooting, you don't need to be hunting in the first place.
It's fear of The Last of Us (Score:2)
Gotta be. They've seen the zombie movies and know that those versions are all fake.
But the fungi folk see The Last of Us and think, oh shit!
And now we see some types evolving to handle higher temperatures:
https://today.duke.edu/2023/01... [duke.edu]
So, missing this from the show, they assume some sentience (or the possibility) and react so as to "care" for the... funga.
First Class Citizen all the way from here on out.
Please don't kill us.
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There is a sci fi short story where someone has gut bacteria placed, and gets into legal trouble because the organisms don't have access to fresh air and sunlight.
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poppycock (Score:3)
WTF is wrong with "flora, fauna and fungi"? Who cares that the trailing vowel is different, if it anything it makes you pay more attention... assuming you know it's 3Fs in the first place.
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This is completely necessary... (Score:1)
> The word "funga" should be used alongside flora ...
> and fauna when discussing conservation issues
Yes, we needed a word for this previously unnamed category, that includes things like mushrooms and toadstools and yeast, among other things, that are strictly speaking neither flora nor fauna ...
> to reflect the importance of fungi
Oh, wait. What is this word, "fungi"? Has anyone ever even heard of that?
*sigh*
fungi and fungal (Score:2)
We have a fungi, a fungal, and fungus. Fungi have many more genders than just those. Glad the UN is working on fixing this injustice.