The enzymes remanufactured the hydrocarbons into carbohydrates fungal sugars.

The mushrooms then are harvested, but very importantly, the mycelium has converted the cellulose into fungal sugars.

The good news, it's not cancer, it's not tuberculosis, it's not coccidioidomycosis or some obscure fungal infection.

At the end of 1987, the scope of the biological weapons work was further expanded and research into additional bacterial agents, such as Clostridium perfringens and fungal toxins, such as trichothecene mycotoxins, was carried out.

Plant and fungal diversity lies at the very foundation of biodiversity, and on them all other life depends. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, thereby providing the air we breathe and helping to regulate the climate.

Molecular biology approaches have been used to improve, inter alia, resistance to stress such as salinity and drought, insect resistance, fungal resistance, and nutrition value of crop products, as well as techniques for genetic transformation and protein expression as used in agroindustry.

Because farming takes place outdoors and in dirt, such contamination is a fact of life. Over the centuries, the main culprit in mass food poisoning often has been contamination of unprocessed crops by fungal toxins a risk that is exacerbated when insects attack food crops, opening wounds that allow fungi (molds) to get a foothold.

Many regulatory agencies have therefore established recommended maximum fumonisin levels permitted in food and feed products made from corn. The conventional way to meet those standards and prevent the consumption of fungal toxins is simply to test unprocessed and processed grains and discard those found to be contaminated an approach that is both wasteful and failure prone.

Alas, none of this has come to pass. Activists continue to mount vocal and tenacious opposition to genetically engineered foods, despite almost 20 years of demonstrated, significant benefits, including reduced use of chemical pesticides (and thus less chemical runoff into waterways), greater use of farming practices that prevent soil erosion, higher profits for farmers, and less fungal contamination.

For example, fumonisin and some other fungal toxins are highly toxic, causing esophageal cancer in humans and fatal diseases in livestock that eat infected corn. Fumonisin also interferes with the cellular uptake of folic acid, a vitamin that reduces the risk of neural tube defects in developing fetuses, and thus can cause folic acid deficiency and defects such as spina bifida even when one s diet contains what otherwise would be sufficient amounts of the vitamin.