Sydney Glassman

speaker

216 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Feb 2026 last heard 5 Feb

Sydney Glassman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 2.

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Last Show with David Cooper · Fire-loving, Charcoal-eating Fungi · 5 Feb 2026 podcast

Yeah.

So in California and other Mediterranean ecosystems, fires are definitely natural and things are adapted to them.

And there's whole books written about the plants and their adaptations to fire.

For example, they have underground tubers.

They have thick bark.

Some plants even have cones that require heat in order to release their seeds.

So they actually require heat in order to reproduce plants.

So there's whole books on this.

We know a lot about plant adaptations to fire, but plants are all associated with microbes as well.

And these fungi and bacteria also have adaptations to fire.

And that's basically what my career is about.

What are these adaptations to fire and how are these microbes, both the bacteria and the fungi surviving and thriving after wildfires?

That's what I want to know.

I was in a pizzeria the other night.

A piece of charcoal from the wood burning fire got on my pizza.

I thought it was like burnt crust.

I took a bite of it and my mouth still feels weird.

I cannot eat charcoal.

Not good for me.

But it's great for these funguses or fungi.

Showing 41–60 of 216 · page 3 of 11