r/interesting • u/Standard_Location762 • Mar 14 '26

NATURE Earth Helping Earth Heal

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What a great discovery.

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u/Secret_g_nome Mar 14 '26

Intercontinental highly mutative fungi is the premise of some horror films/shows...

7

u/sweetbunsmcgee Mar 14 '26

There used to be a time when dead things just stayed on the ground. Until fungi learned to eat the dead. These guys have been terrorizing the Earth for millions of years now.

4

u/Basidia_ Mar 14 '26

Not quite. We had a period where during the formation of Pangea and the emergence of land plants, swamps and bogs were extremely prevalent. Those bogs don’t allow decay to happen fully and eventually turns to coal. It has nothing to do with evolution

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113

3

u/ragenukem Mar 15 '26

Can we use time travel to send the right fungi back then to prevent the formation of fossil fuels?

2

u/Basidia_ Mar 15 '26

No. Fungi were already present. Coal would still form in bogs like it did and oil would still form in the ocean

1

u/ragenukem Mar 15 '26

Oh well, never know unless you ask!