Is it Mushroom Season Yet?

I've been on campus all week and have been spotting mushrooms here and there. Yesterday I spotted this basket stinkhorn (clathrus ruber) that hasn't fully come out of its egg sack, otherwise known as the volva. 

This is one of my favorite mushrooms--the basket/lattice structure amazes me. 

I went to Science Neat on Tuesday and a ton of researchers and mycologists set up demos and talks to learn more about fungi. This may sound silly, but I finally learned how to pronounce certain words. Like fungi. Almost all of the researchers say fungi with a 'juh' sound and not with a 'guh' sound. Is it interchangeable?! I am definitely not a scientist. 

Anyway, I really enjoyed the talks, which were held at El Rio in San Francisco. Science? Bar? That's a good pairing! It would probably be godsend if I were a frequent drinker. 

A demo on identifying mushrooms

Here are some of the things I learned...and I'll be brief (If i truly allowed my nerdy side to come out I probably would have been jotting notes in my notebook):

•fungi are more like humans than plants

•picking up mushrooms doesn't kill them...one of the speakers compared it to picking an apple, the mushroom itself is the fruiting body. 

•some fungi are predators--they "hunt" using toxins that paralyzing flies, worms, and nematodes.

•zombies may actually be real--well in the insect works. Some fungi invade the bodies and brains of ants and other insects, causing them to alter their behavior. The insects, ants in this case, climb to a tall grass/branch and clamp on using their mandibles and die. Once the fungi has dissolved the ants internal organs, a large structure comes out of the ant's head and releases more spores that other insects pick up. WEIRD but fascinating!!

I'm planning a mushroom hunt tomorrow, and I hope I spot some cool fungi. The rains are coming down hard today in San Francisco...hope this is the start of mushroom season!