Sydney Glassman

How do they do it?

How do they eat charcoal?

So what we did with this study is we sequenced their genomes.

And we found that they have a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them have a really increased genetic capacity to break down pyrogenic organic matter or charcoal.

So they have a lot of different genes and they've evolved the way to increase these genes in a lot of different ways.

One is by gene duplication.

So they basically just copy and paste

and replicate their genes.

So they have a lot more that enable them to break down charcoal.

Another is through sexual reproduction.

So when I teach mycology, some students always think like, oh, I didn't realize fungi had sex.

Actually, fungi have a lot of sex, and they have really different weird kinds of sex.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Don't gloss over this one.

They have weird sex?

Yeah, they're really famous for having lots of weird types of sex.

They can have asexual and sexual reproduction.

They can have, like, tons of different mating types where you might be able to have, like, 38 different... Instead of just, like, one male and a female, it could be, like, 38 different types of mating types.

So they have, like, a lot of different ways to sexually reproduce that humans or animals do not have, and that enables them to...

survive a lot of disturbances.