Fungus is Everywhere, and Can Do Anything

You know some funguses. We've been arguing over the plural for many years, and both fungi and funguses are correct outside of science papers. Fungi include yeast, mushrooms, athlete's foot, mildew, and a few others you're familiar with, but scientists estimate there are millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of species we don't even know about yet. Biologists know what they have in common, but to the rest of us, they just aren't plants, animals, bacteria, or the other kingdoms. Different types of fungus exist everywhere, from the Arctic to nuclear waste to inside other species. The species we know about do so many different things that the world we know couldn't exist without them. And they've come up with some pretty strange superpowers, like helping trees talk to each other, consuming radiation, and inducing hallucinations. And that's just the beginning! This TED-Ed lesson tells us more of what we know and don't know abut fungi.