A common fungus can break down hard-to-recycle construction waste and turn it into sustainable insulation that rivals ...

Biomass is a vital source of energy used by people and myriad other organisms. Two decades ago, microbiologist Barry Goodell discovered that some microbes have a special mechanism for the breakdown ...

If you’ve ever been camping, or live in tree-dense areas, then you may have heard or seen a woodpecker. These birds love to use their beaks as jackhammers and buzz away at the trunks of trees to ...

Through a combination of lab and field experiments, researchers have developed a better understanding of the factors accounting for different wood decomposition rates among fungi. The new findings ...

One of the most basic rules for playing the game "Twenty Questions" is that all of the questions must be definitively answered by either "yes" or "no." The exchange of information allows the players ...

So far, little research has been conducted on fungi that live on dead trees, although they are vital to the forest ecology by breaking down dead wood and completing the element cycle between plants ...

An international team of researchers, including scientists from the University of York, has discovered a set of enzymes found in fungi that are capable of breaking down one of the main components of ...

If a woodpecker wants a home, it does more than just knock on wood – it takes some tiny helpers with it. The red-cockaded woodpecker seems to carry spores of fungi that rot wood in what appears to be ...

There are probably more than two or three million kinds of fungi, although fewer than about two hundred thousand are known taxonomically. What strange creatures they are: not plants, although their ...