Lichen: The Mysterious Love Child of Fungi and Algae
Ғылым және технология
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A useful principle in the story of life is that you should never underestimate algae or cyanobacteria. They’ll just always manage to surprise you, and more importantly, to remind you that everything you have comes down, eventually, to them.
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commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
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SOURCES:
www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topi...
www.livescience.com/54979-wha...
royalsociety.org/news/2014/sl...
www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/b...
www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/b...
www.livescience.com/55008-lic...
ohioplants.org/lichen-biology/
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...\_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr\_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr\_dat=cr\_pub%20%200pubmed
www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/b...
www.researchgate.net/publicat...\_Simon\_Schwendener\_1829-1919\_and\_the\_Dual\_Hypothesis\_of\_Lichens
www.nature.com/articles/nrmic...
microbialcellfactories.biomed...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...
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Пікірлер: 256
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@noimnotakpoppfpsheacy2526
Жыл бұрын
PURR SIS 🧜🏿♀️
@caiden-_-
Жыл бұрын
Can you do a video on deadly amoebas, how they kill, and how they enter the human bodies. The two main ones I'm wondering about is the brain eating amoeba, Naegleria fowleri and balamuthia mandrillaris which I heard can enter from a cut like on the hand if someone is messing with dirt and I dig a good bit and use my hands to pull things out of the ground covered in dirt
@TheO5Council
3 ай бұрын
I think it would be interesting if we can make a mycelium/ lichen supercomputer which would self-assemble into a working biological computer we already can create biological lasers and store digital information in the Genome of living organisms I think we might be able to Frankenstein some kind of bio Quantum bit
I actually read that recent research proves that a lichen always has one species of alga and *two* species of fungi. I was surprised nobody noticed in, you know, some 200 years, but I can't see it in these amazing images, either.
@willowarkan2263
Жыл бұрын
Same, that was covered in my biodiversity of plants course, which includes fungi for "historical reasons". We were taught that the secondary fungal symbiont may be the catalyst for the morphological expression of the lichen, so if it's scaly or leafy, etc.
@Kammerliteratur
Жыл бұрын
yes, there are yeasts in lichen, too. but at the moment, nobody knows which role they play or if they are just commensals.
@borttorbbq2556
Жыл бұрын
One algae 2 fungi and like 3 bacteria
@csn583
Жыл бұрын
For the 12 days of symbiosis, my lichen gave to me...
@rEGGinaldYolkerston-qp9px
Жыл бұрын
@@csn583 good thread; would read again. Good job everyone!
I used to teach the 5th-grade science class how Alice Algae met Freddie Fungus and they took a Lichen to each other. Thanks to recent studies I can't do that anymore without explaining what a throuple is
@LilBrownieD
5 ай бұрын
😅😅
@weldonanderson5124
3 ай бұрын
Theodore Throuple?
You know, I've really started to take a lichen to this channel. The writing is excellent and Hank is such a fungi!
@andrearupe8094
Жыл бұрын
AaaaaaaaaaaaAAA
@williek08472
Жыл бұрын
Booooooooo
@KonradvonHotzendorf
Жыл бұрын
Nice 😂👍
@nadapenny8592
Жыл бұрын
I hate how good this is.
@ronaldmorgan7632
Жыл бұрын
And Al, gee, he's so green with envy.
I remember a chance encounter at a park with a fellow sitting on a rock looking over lichen. "Nice day, what are you looking at?" He told me about the symbiosis of lichen. I'd wondered since how integrated the cells were, thanks for showing such!
@accelerationquanta5816
Жыл бұрын
Rare interaction between PCs in a world primarily composed of NPCs
@anonhere4021
4 ай бұрын
That exchange sounds absolutely magical
@anonhere4021
4 ай бұрын
That exchange sounds absolutely magical
The level of quality this channel brings to every single video is just staggering.
@DirtyDerg
Ай бұрын
Zoomers be like "Wow a channel with no filler!!!" Everyone else "This is just how the internet used to be."
I remember when my local council in England proudly announced that someone had discovered a new type of lichen on a pavement. Sadly, during analysis it was noticed that the ‘lichen’ smelled faintly of mint and was actually chewing gum!
@SirUncleDolan
Жыл бұрын
Just goes to show, it's good to independently confirm before sharing with the rest of the class! 🤭 I feel bad for the person who thought they found it though, hopefully it was just a student or something
@RichardLaurence
Жыл бұрын
@@SirUncleDolan I don’t think anyone got too much grief - it was treated in a light-hearted way!
@RADCOMJ1
Жыл бұрын
Maybe because it was wriggleys😉
I’m just reading through the comments, and this channel has the sweetest fan base
maybe lichen is kind of like what life was on earth before it got more complex. Similar to how we eventually somehow captured mitochondria and integrated it, there was probably a time when our ancestor organisms were still just symbiotically coming togther.
@djinnisequoia
Жыл бұрын
That's a viable theory. I've seen it postulated that our internal organs may have started out as symbiotic colonies
@jamesbugbee9026
Жыл бұрын
The colon as an intelligent worm (fill it w/ barium & C what happens)
@catpoke9557
Жыл бұрын
@@djinnisequoia that is kind of gross to think about
@MaryAnnNytowl
Жыл бұрын
@@jamesbugbee9026 no, much simpler internals than that. We got mitochondria that way, after all.
"We don't know the tings we don't know". Equally profound and disturbing at the same time.
Because they can both photosynthesize and break down minerals for food, lichens are one of the first lifeforms to recolonize after disasters like forest fires and volcanic eruptions. Scientists use the appearance of lichens as an indicator that an ecological area is recovering
I developed (ha!) a love affair with lichen when I got a camera with a microscope setting, that lets me take incredibly zoomed-in photos at extremely close range. I discovered an entire garden of lichen growing atop one of the old wooden fence posts of my mom's garden. The closer you get, the stranger and more beautiful they are. And of course, they also frequently play host to my OTHER favorite microorganism, the tardigrade!
If this is who I think it is narrating, thank you SO much for a) slowing the narration down and b) laying off all that redundant text. Much more relaxing this way…thanks again, excellent content as per usual.
Funny, I was thinking about lichen recently. Haven't washed my car in a while and there's something reddish growing on the roof. Was thinking of sending samples of it to James, if he's interested
your narritives and visuals give me a sense of peace while fueling my curiosity in a way no other channel has been able to achieve. i come here to relax and learn about little tiny guys, all while wearing my cozy microcosm crewneck which goes harder than any other sweater i own
Our perspective on the world is always limited by the language culture uses to describe it. It's like Godel's incompleteness theorem, there will always be true things about the world that stand apart from language, the framework we use to explain it to ourselves. It's the task of poets and visionaries to create new models, pushing the language of understanding right up to the boundary of what's speakable
@ArawnOfAnnwn
Жыл бұрын
That's known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (or linguistic relativity). Note that the strong version of that (linguistic determinism) is generally rejected by both linguists and psychologists.
@gastonmarian7261
Жыл бұрын
The fascists of the world have long known how to use this for evil. Define your opponents as "untermensch", under men, literally sub-human, and suddenly lots of reasonable people think it's okay to genocide a population, rather than having compassion for their fellow human beings. Within your own experience of reality, you can approach the unspeakable much nearer. As espoused by philosopher and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, we can at any time reengage with the archaic techniques of shamanism, partaking of plant medicines like mushrooms or ayahuasca to shed all conventions of language. By stepping outside of culture, we get a new perspective on reality and are invited to come up with linguistic models for things no one has seen before and no one will ever see again. On any weekend afternoon, each of us could be our own Magellan, sailing the seas of our own internal landscapes, finding new shores. When we prone the boundaries of our own humanness, engage directly with our connection to the Other, that which is truly alien and has only us as its connection point to the mundane plane, we find how profound and ecstatic our existence on this planet can be. "I lean over meaning's edge, and feel the dizziness of the things unsaid." Because there are things close to the surface that are truly unsayable, showing us through personal, direct experience how literally our language limits us. Just as being wrapped in a body of flesh and blood opens one set of possibilities and limitations to us, culture too wraps us in another layer that filters what's accessible in our sphere. Fortunately, culture can evolve quicker than biology, and we are free at any moment to shed it in search of more fundamental truths.
@jamesbugbee9026
Жыл бұрын
Infinity vs (#) vocabulary
@k1m6a11
Жыл бұрын
ummm, wut?
What I don't yet understand is how a lichen is formed. Is it a fungus that meets an algae and in a kind off wedding for the lichen, or is the lichen something that produces spores that grow new lichen?
@bjornbesbitt6446
Жыл бұрын
Both of your guesses are right! An algae and a fungus can collide in nature and eventually grow together to form a lichen. A mature lichen can also reproduce by releasing packets of algal pores and hyphae into the air, or growing fragile bits of itself outward, that break off and become their own organism
@DenUil
Жыл бұрын
@@bjornbesbitt6446 thanks!
@andrewgraves4026
Жыл бұрын
The sexual part of lichen reproduction often gets glossed over. Where and how do separate lichen individuals combine DNA? Do the alga and fungus make separate packages of DNA which … combine, like two couples, in spore production?
@bjornbesbitt6446
Жыл бұрын
@@andrewgraves4026 it's a little unusual and I don't 100% understand it myself as I am still a student. But basically, when a lichen sexually reproduces, it's only the fungal component that releases any genetic material. The fungus releases spores into the environment, and the spores must wait until they have encountered the appropriate algae or cyanobacteria. Since this method relies so much on that chance meeting, it is not as effective as asexual reproduction.
@andrewgraves4026
Жыл бұрын
@@bjornbesbitt6446 thanks! Great job.
I’m lichen this channel! So great. Keep up the good work!
The photos were amazing! You should make posters of them!
I wonder to what extent lichens prepared the early Earth for green plants and animals, adding oxygen to the air and breaking down rocks.
@AmandaComeauCreates
Жыл бұрын
I believe it's already well theorized that lichen might've been the first and most successful land organisms but I saw it in a video awhile back.
beautiful video!! thank you again! it left me with some thoughts, and i'll go ahead and share them: it seems that opposition is easy to spot because it can feel disruptive and scary, but more broadly, everything is so cooperative and connected that things like opposition and individuality just stand out so starkly against the contrast, which makes those things feel like the more prevailing trends; however, when all things are considered, the level of internal and external cooperation is on an entirely different scale. much of that which feels like opposition is simply interactions and building blocks that are a part of a larger scale cooperation. it's only when things of the same scale cooperate that we even call it cooperation, which is a mistake. love yall out there, stay up!!!
Another great episode, Thank you.
I wake & baked this morning, and this is exactly how I wanted to spend my Easter Monday 😂 I love you, Hank, thank you so much for this show ❤
@csn583
Жыл бұрын
Careful, only you can prevent...
@ChrisUnltdTV
Жыл бұрын
High right now and my mind is blown watching this 😂
@codemonkeyslikeme
Жыл бұрын
Smoke dat green lichens 🔥
Great Video as always 😁 Tiny language PSA though: „Sch“ as in Schwendener is pronounced the same as „sh“ in the word shake. Cheers from Austria 🇦🇹
Does Hank Green have to be the host of every science channel on KZread? I can't seem to get away from him! He almost had me fooled with his more calm-than-usual tone here, but the credits don't lie!
So here's the question hanging unanswered over this episode.... Do lichens reproduce other lichens or is each lichen a chance meeting of strangers?
I cultivated as a novice on an artifical rock wall in a paludarium, just from a pinch of lichen I collected.
Always beautiful videos!
Great episode like always
Thanks for this. Watching many many nature videos I have heard lichens mentioned many times as a unique life-form made up of two others, but this is the first time I have found out why and what the processes are for their interactions. You have expanded my world another notch and I will never walk by a lichen again without looking and marveling at it.
@houstongalloway6380
10 ай бұрын
I agree. I've watched many "documentaries" on Lichen and this one is great. Short and full of knowledge, and pictures.
My mycology professor had this video on one of his lecture slides!
how does lichen fall under taxonomy? how does it reproduce if it needs both algae and fungi? which fungi and which algae can combine as a lichen? so many questions...
Imagine your buddy literally living inside your body and being super chill and helpful to you. How bro do you have to be to hang out inside your buddy.
I taught a lichen themed summer camp recently haha! Lichen is very cool and I'm happy to see it get the recognition it deserves
Really good episode. I love the microscopy, so detailed , I screenshot one and set as my wallpaper
Good show!
In CT USA.. lichen smell LOVELY. ☺️😻 I once took a gravestone cleaning class and realized their comforting, earthy, almost petrichor ish scent bc I came home smelling great 😂 .. they're also very pretty. 🎉
If they became a single organism fully, would they create a whole new Kingdom or even Domain? :o
@6:00 the little things vibrating whatever that molecule was (looks like just a big drop of water) until it popped and realizing it didnt actually pop and his friend behind him trying to push him into the little gap he cant fit was amazing. It looked like it was vibrating that molecule so hard it was creating a sonic pressure wave between it and the molecule. Then it popped and became more circular and it started getting pushed by his buddies and started trying to create the wave again to get through. I wonder if he ever made it? lol
@Infamous159
Жыл бұрын
likewise at 8:08 the little rod that comes into view just below 630X text and disappears once it meets something vibrating was equally interesting. What was that? Didn't look like bacteria
Dayum! way better than expected
I've been waiting for a lichen video for ages.
Ive been watching loads of videos about lichen recently, just out of curiosity. Then you go an upload this.
Whaaat. Fungi/ hyphae work with algae. So cool. It's amazing all the processes needed for us to survive.
Amazing! Now we just need an episode on endosymbionts.
Very interesting!
Man just watched scishow before this video and realized man that voice sounds familiar. Been watching these for a while, but never made the connection. :D
Thank you.
Thank you for being so chill in these videos, I can sleep now.
Everytime I see a lichen I point it out and say “I’m liken’ it!!!”
no way...,,, lichen are the og symbiosises i did not know that. that is so cool
great data and presentation and excellent reflection about modern dogmas in science. 10/10
I love lichen, as an amateur, but I freaked out with delight when I found out about the new (new to humans) double fungi twist. I wonder how many other lifeforms will be found to be the result of living things combing with one or more other living things.
I could listen to Hank speak quietly and closely into a microphone all day 😂
Several years ago, it was discovered that lichen have at least three species: two algae or cyanobacteria, and a fungus.
THANK YOU!!! I love lichens.
another wonderful episode, thank you!
What about yeast? Seems to me that I remember hearing about a lichen and that had algae, fungus, and yeast
@Kammerliteratur
Жыл бұрын
that's true, but the role of the yeast is not yet understood.
@csn583
Жыл бұрын
Yeast is also fungi FWIW.
@Kammerliteratur
Жыл бұрын
@@csn583 yes.
@synoptic4753
Жыл бұрын
Yeast to ferment Human bodies
“You see, just as the earth lichen is composed of an algae and a fungus, the quantum variety is also comped of two separated parts: an attractive, algae-based id and a ravenous, fungus-based ego that stores the stolen souls - I mean, life forces. Now, here’s the weird part: the ego and the id are connected not physically, like decent, God-fearing earth lichens, but by quantum entanglement.”
@Pyro-et9vs
6 ай бұрын
What are you talking about?
When you say the holdfast is like a peg, do you mean a wooden peg as in a straight rod, a wooden peg for a clothesline, a divided rod, or a clothes peg that pinches with a spring and opens and shuts ?
I was taught the symbiosis of lichen as the algae are the phytobiont (not photobiont) & the fungi the mycobiont
The ultimate evolution of the lichen is surely the lichen trees of the Tentacled Forest, the great coniferous rainforest stretching across 35 hundred of miles of Northwest Novopangea.
This is definitely to my lichen. Lol 😆 liking
Mycobiont and photobiont: They took a likin' to each other.
I want to see the big leafy lichen growing on a sloth, that would look so cool, like someone from a video game.
Good friendship 🤝
I love this so much!
That's the voice of Mr Tom Hank from PBS Sci-Show! Isn't it??
Lichen, how they evolved and what they are made of, have analogy to religion also. There is “us”, each of us is individual and can function and at times reproduce with others of our kind. And there are those in our heads, those who help or harm us. The help or harm is at times dependent on what we are willing to put up with as voices in our heads. These voices can get around and function but they can not reproduce. Those voices can help us to do good or bad.
If there is lichen growing on my feet, does that mean I need to move more? 🤣
I have always loved lichen and fungi
Lichen is like Jesus. When I found Lichen I saw it everywhere. It filled my heart, and guided my thoughts. The world will never be the same again.
Im really lichen this episode 🖤✨
So this means the fungus are the PMC and Bodyguard of Algae. Impressive.
shoutout to the great oxidization effect
7:38 Wow, beautiful!
has any gene work been done to see how they relate / interact / which functions each does?
Yeah, we're much closer the the beginning than the ending of understanding
I'm surprised. Story checks out.
@2nostromo
Жыл бұрын
what did you learn?
What did the algae say to fungus about their symbiotic relationship? . . . I'm LICHEN it!
Al Gee met Fun Gus met and took a lichen to each other.
I found lichen that was bone dry. Growing with moss. It's the beginning of spring now.
I’m lichen this content!
Why are these videos still survives in the TikTok era, and why am I liking this more than I should?
8:14 someone need to create a KZread channel dedicated exclusively to the things that we don't know
Did a double take when I saw the thumbnail, read it as "dual orgasm" lol
I’m looking for a poster illustration of small measurements down to the atomic level. Can someone please point me? Thanks.
The number 3 is the beginning of everything we've learned.
You forgot to mention the biggest thing we need to thank Cyanobacteria for is our mitochondria.
Lichen is inside my body, right now, through a certain (American) company/brand that uses safe, organic, marine/plant, vegan/vegetarian based ingredients! I have a certain surgery, this Friday, and thought I was going to get my second bottle of vitamin D3 (plant based from lichen) for next day delivery a week ago. An hour and a half, ago, one of my neighbors knocked on my door and she told me that she put my package in front of my door and went upstairs to her apartment. I couldn't wait to open and use these supplements! I came across this certain brand/company, on Amazon, a year ago. Their vitamin D3 was/is the first organic/vegan vitamins I bought from them. A few weeks, maybe a month later, I went to a hospital to check my vitamin d levels and I couldn't believe how potent these were/are. Before that, my brain and body was in so much pain because of lack of vitamins, especially/mostly lack of vitamin D3. I wished I knew about this specific brand/company years ago. Lichen also helps with bone, teeth, and immune health benefits!
I'm watching this video and I'm lichen what I see.
Not the first time a fun guy couple were lichen some Al, G.
This symbiosis reminds me of "multicellular life". 😂
Fun guy and al gore Iconic duo
I love this ❤
Please please please do a deep dive on myxomycetes (slime mold) it’s not a fungus or a plant. It has a part of its life cycle where the spore’s it drops for reproduction land in water they grow flagella and start hunting bacteria
Let me Introduce you to Warhammer 40K Orks. WaaaaggH! chuckles
was good
You really have to wonder just how many "crazy" theories have been dismissed, simply because of the closed minded thinking we're all responsible for.
Is the narrator the dude from Sci show?
Is that Hank Green's voice?