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Offline khurram

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Brazil Glow in the dark mushroom,
« on: July 09, 2011, 04:38:11 PM »
A glow-in-the-dark mushroom that has not been seen since 1840 has been found in a Brazilian rainforest.
 The luminescent fungus was discovered by scientist Dennis Desjardin and a team from San Francisco State University in 2009.
 They have now collected new specimens and reclassified it Neonothopanus gardner; their findings are published in the journal Mycologia
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Offline khurram

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Re: Brazil Glow in the dark mushroom,
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2011, 04:38:18 PM »
 

 
 
 Researchers hope that careful study of the mushroom - which shines brightly enough to read by - and its other bioluminescent cousins around the world will help answer the question of how and why some fungi glow.
 Neonothopanus gardner was last seen in 1840 when British botanist George Gardner spotted boys playing with a glowing object the called 'flor-de-coco'.
 To catch the green glow of the bioluminescent mushroom, Dr Desjardin and his research partner in Brazil, Dr Cassius Stevani, had to 'go out on new moon nights and stumble around in the forest, running into trees', while keeping an eye out for poisonous snakes and prowling jaguars.
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Offline khurram

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Re: Brazil Glow in the dark mushroom,
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2011, 04:38:35 PM »
 

 
 Researchers believe that the fungi make light in the same way that a firefly does, through a chemical mix of a luciferin compound and a luciferase.
 Luciferase is an enzyme that aids the interaction among luciferin, oxygen and water to produce a new compound that emits light.
 But scientists haven't yet identified the luciferin and luciferase in fungi.
 'They glow 24 hours a day, as long as water and oxygen are available,' Dr Desjardin explained.
 'But animals only produce this light in spurts. This tells us that the chemical that is acted upon by the enzyme in mushrooms has to be readily available and abundant.'
 The why behind the glow also remains mostly a mystery. In mushrooms where the spore-bearing part glows, some scientists think the light may help attract insects that can help disperse the spores to grow new mushrooms.
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