In the mid-’80s, scientists discovered a giant fungus growing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Now, researchers have found the organism is at least 2,500 years old. And the secret to the mushroom’s longevity might be a genome that’s highly resistant to mutation, the team reports today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The discovery could help researchers figure out why cancer genomes are so unstable.
In 1983, Johann Bruhn planted red pines in the forest. Within the next few years, the trees began to die. The trend continued for about 15 years. Bruhn, a forest health specialist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, traced the trees’ deaths to a species of honey mushroom dubbed Armillaria gallica, a parasitic fungus that preys on trees weakened by drought, insects and other fungal infections. Bruhn examined the fungus, taking it out of the forest to find out whether a unique ...
