Language: Swedish
A form of life so strange and wonderful that it makes one see life in a completely new way.
How is it that a Japanese scientist can claim that a slime fungus is smarter than humans? And what does that have to do with IKEA? Can it really be true that the largest known mushroom on earth covers an area greater than 10 square kilometers? And what do ink sponges really have to do with the production of this book? Neither plant nor animal, fungi are everywhere on earth, in the air and in our bodies. They may be microscopic, yet some of the world's largest organisms are fungi – 10 square kilometers in size, 35,000 tonnes in weight and over 2,000 years old. The ability of fungi to eat rock laid the foundation for the first life on land, and for 40 million years, huge formations of fungi dominated the world's surface. Fungi can survive in space and thrive in radioactive radiation.
Mushrooms can solve problems without any brain, expanding all definitions of intelligence. They can manipulate animals in ways so impressive that we don't yet fully understand how it's done. The discovery of how fungi connect plant life on the planet into a massive network – the “Wood Wide Web” – is reshaping our entire view of how non-animal life works. By providing humans with bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have reshaped the history of our species. Its ability to consume plastics, explosives, poisons and crude oil has begun to be used at the absolute forefront of technology. The psychedelic properties of mushrooms, which have influenced cultures since ancient times, have recently been shown to hold potential solutions to some of our most difficult mental illnesses. And yet we have barely mapped a fraction of the millions of species of fungi that live on Earth. In his revolutionary journey of discovery, Merlin Sheldrake takes us into the spectacular and unknown world of mushrooms. Come along and learn about the organisms that created our world and are in full swing shaping our future.
Product information
Author: Merlin Sheldrake
Translator: Jim Jakobsson
ISBN: 9789179653224
Language: Swedish
Weight: 346 grams
Released: 2023
Publisher: Volante
Pages: 402