Magic Mushrooms: Can Fungi Help Clean Up Pollution?
Editor’s Note: Today we welcome Alison Kroulek to the writing team. Alison is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and her first post is a very interesting look at how we can harness nature to heal nature. In Fort Bragg, California, one of the main industries in town used to be a redwood mill operated by Georgia-Pacific. The mill is closed now, but like many industrial sites, a toxic legacy lives on in the soil. In 2001-2, the mill burned wood from landfills to create power. The ash piles are now contaminated with a nasty little chemical called dioxin, which can be produced whenever organic materials are burned. At least, that’s the official version of how the site came to be contaminated. This earlier report from the San Francisco Chronicle hints at more serious environmental misdeeds, such as dumping dioxin-containing oils. Although dioxin is a natural substance, in unnaturally high concentrations it is known to cause cancer and other diseases. According to the World Health Organization,
