FULL EPISODE: Ice, Ice, Fungus! - March 17, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Unfiltered discussions.
What fascinating fungi can freeze water?
Unexpected guests. No topic is off-limits. From sex and relationships to the human condition. Personal anxieties and so much more. The only talk show of its kind in the world. World This Is. Hi, welcome in. It's The Last Show. You'll learn a lot on the night's program.
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Here are some of the topics we'll cover. You're laying on your therapist's couch, spilling your deepest secrets, and secretly wondering if your therapist is into you. It's surprisingly common to fall for your mental health professional. In 10 minutes time, we'll discuss what happens when you fall in love with your therapist. Is it real love? Is it projection? And what do you do when it happens? Then after that, for those who decide to become vegan, it's not just a change in diet. It's navigating a social minefield that gets created. Think food and your family and your friends.
What challenges do vegans face in an omnivorous society?
We'll discuss that halfway through the hour. That is some of what we'll cover on the show. There will be more. Let's dive in. Imagine I told you I could freeze water. Well, if I own a fridge, it's not that impressive. But what if I told you I could do it without a fridge and that I was fungus? Well, there's a form of fungus that can freeze water. And we're here to learn about it here with chemistry professor at Boise State University and at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. His name is Conrad Meister.
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Conrad, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So this sounds like total science fiction, like something out of a movie, a fungi, a fungus, funguses, I never know how to say that word properly, that can freeze water. What is going on? Paint a picture for me here. Yeah, I think it's been super unexpected for us as well, because I think the journey started actually... being us going to some of these very cold places. In this case, it was in Alaska. And then when you're in Alaska and you see all these lichen, which are basically fungus mixed with some other microbes, you realize that for some reason these lichens can survive freezing super well.
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and that is of course very nice to begin with but then you want to know how can they do that and then we started looking into it and we really found that there's this fungus that's super good at ice making and then we poked a bit further and then we saw it's not only the fungus there's something in the fungus that's so good at ice making and so then the real bizarre thing was that These fungi that are so good at ice making, you not only found on the ground, but you also seem to find them basically in the clouds and in precipitation. So that really raises the question of what makes It rain and why does this fungus have this capability? Fungus in the clouds? How do you even discover that? What's going on?
Yeah, that's the weird thing because we always obviously want to know why does it rain and what causes cloud precipitation, I think is the word. We make ice in the clouds so that it comes down. And I think the idea is not completely new, because they had found some bacteria, some plant fragments up there, and then sometimes they found these fungal spores.
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But now we're actually starting to understand why and how good these fungi really are at ice making, because they are pretty exceptional. And they're also pretty much close to being indestructible, so that makes it a really, really interesting product as well. So ice obviously needs cold temperature to form. What is the trick here? What are the funguses doing to create ice, like in warmer conditions? Yeah, so, I mean, obviously in high school, we all learn like, hey, below zero degree, it should be ice. Above that, it should be liquid water. But in reality, it's almost like you need like, I would say like, hey, you're standing on this cliff and you want to jump in the water because it's nice and warm, but someone has to push you because you're afraid.
So you need this, what we call like a trigger or a nucleator. And the fungus, they produce these proteins that are basically a bit of like a mirror image of ice.
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So they have like a pattern that looks almost like ice just built by a certain biomolecule, like a protein.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:03
2
What fascinating fungi can freeze water?
0:03–0:27
3
How common is it to develop feelings for your therapist?
0:27–1:01
4
What challenges do vegans face in an omnivorous society?
1:01–1:26
5
How do asexual women prioritize traits in partners differently?
1:26–2:06
6
What is the link between socioeconomic status and brain health?
2:06–3:09
7
Why do child prodigies often not become elite performers?
3:09–3:58
8
Does heat affect prosocial behavior?
3:58–1:20:10
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