Fungi: The New Frontier

It all started with rumours of an 800-meter underground organism hidden under the streets of Cambridge and a plate of mushrooms on toast. With cream. In this three-part series, Tim Hayward falls down a rabbit hole into kingdom (or as some call it queendom) Fungi. Along the way he starts to question pretty much everything he thought he knew about the world, discovering scientists doing pioneering research that’s changing how we understand life on Earth and offering solutions to some of our biggest challenges. In this first episode, Tim forages, talks truffle sex appeal, travels back to long before the dinosaurs, discovers a 4000-year old mushroom culture in Japan, and heads into a restricted containment level one laboratory to witness an ancient and profound interaction between two very different species of life, all happening right in front of his eyes. Featuring: Suzanne Simard, forest ecologist and author of Finding the Mother Tree Eugenia Bone, writer and mycologist Sebastian Schornack, microbe and plant researcher Mark Williams, wild food teacher and forager Toshimitsu Fukiharu, curator and mycological researcher Merlin Sheldrake, biologist and author of Entangled Life Presenter: Tim Hayward Producer and Sound Designer: Richard Ward Executive Producer: Miranda Hinkley Image courtesy of Carolina Magnasco A Loftus Media production for Radio 4