From the Department of More Cool Natural History Videos with Interesting Music, I give you the sexy CGI version of the fungus Aspergillus (ass-per-jill’-us) courtesy of some fine folks in Mother Russia. You may think of this fungus (if you think of it at all) as the scary black bane of your tupperware contents. But in reality, the graceful, proud forests of Aspergillus in your leftover gardens have a softer, more new age side (although they do seem to enjoy bashing into each other . . .)
Almost as exciting as the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park! It’s only a matter of time until one of those hyphae (hi-fee, fungal filaments) figures out how to unscrew the lid on its moldy pickle jar. Actually, gratuitous spore bashing aside, this really is a fine animation. What you are seeing are Aspergillus conidiophores, or asexual spore-bearing stalks. As they grow up, spores grow in long chains at the swollen tip of the conidiophore. Although this animation’s depiction of multiplying conidia (asexual spores) isn’t quite right in the details (if you look carefully, some of those conidia literally appear out of thin air), it’s a worthy fakery job. You get the idea.
Aspergillus is a very common mold. Odds are its spores are floating around in the room you are sitting in right now, and this video amply demonstrates why. When I was at MIT, I did my thesis on the mold hysteria that gripped the U.S. about 10 years ago. I was flabbergasted by people who seemed to think any mold in the air was cause for panic. The opening line of my thesis was, “Living creatures float in every breath we take.” That is situation normal, and has been for several hundred million years. Though you are likely inhaling dozens or hundreds of fungal spores as you read this, healthy immune systems are more than equipped to handle it.
In college microbiology lab, Aspergillus was also one of the two fungi we examined in the 10 minutes we weren’t coaxing bacteria into pure culture (mostly) or playing with protists (rarely, unfortunately). If you have a microscope (you do, don’t you? Oh wait. I don’t either. Must work on that.), try scraping some mold off the nearest refrigerator-aged cheese and see if you luck into one of these. Even if not, you might be amazed by what you find. Wee animalcules aren’t the only thing worth gazing upon at 100X. Not by a longshot.
- Conidia and conidiophore (fancy science-nerd name for asexual spores and the stalk that makes them) of Aspergillus fumigatus, courtesy CDC.
Fungi have an überweird classification scheme I will tell you about some other time, but suffice it to say it’s based on the sexual phases of fungi, and Aspergillus ain’t it. However, when the sexual forms are known for Aspergillus species (and they aren’t always!), they are placed in the Ascomycota, or sac-forming fungi, which I have discussed before. Here’s a tree.
Discovered courtesy MycoRant.
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Nice blog. Thanks for linking in to my post featuring the Aspergillus animation. I thought it was very cool too. Let me know in the future anytime you make a post having to do with fungi.
Thanks Phil! I actually found out about MycoRant through the Colorado Mycological Society. Thank YOU for putting all the fungal news in one place.
Heh, when I saw that MycoRant was based in Colorado, I thought “Oooh… those two would get along quite well” =P
The animation was pretty awesome! Glad to know that computer work is still alive and well in my home country…
I think I attended a Colorado Mycological Society event at the Denver Botanic Gardens around 1999 and have good memories of it. I have a definition fascination with all things fungal and need to spend some time identifying a variety of mushrooms that I’ve photographed including these and these. The latter in particular interest me for their strength in breaking through compacted driveway. I recall reading a book that had numerous stories of the lifting feats that mushrooms can perform. Most of my google searches for mushroom strength invariably lead to Psilocybe which isn’t what I’m after. Even when I exclude that and break out my best google-fu, the best I could really find was this article I can’t access at JSTOR.
Speaking of microscopes, I’m sure you’ve seen the recent winners in Nikon’s Small World contest? Thinkgeek has a variety of lower end wired and wireless microscopes that I’ve been considering for a while.
I’ve also been meaning to mention Carl Zimmer’s upcoming talk on evolution at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I recently read an older book he wrote, Parasite Rex, and enjoyed it enough that I ordered all his newer books. There are of course some very perverse fungal zombie parasites out there that get covered in that book.
I loved that video, especially the zoom out to the pickle at the end. :) I also liked the illusion of walking through a forest of Aspergillus “palm trees.”
The Russian title at the end, by the way, is simply the word MOLD.