100-million-year-old fungus brings hints of Cretaceous ecology.
An unusual fossil-hunting team has hit upon an unusual discovery: the oldest found mushroom fossil yet, encased in amber along with a striking example of a parasite feeding upon a parasite. Dated to 100 million years ago by the age of material surrounding the amber, the mushroom joins the exclusive company of just a handful of fossilized fleshy fungal bodies ever found.
The chance of finding such a specimen is tiny. But, George Poinar, an Oregon State University zoologist and president of The Amber Institute, in Corvallis, Oregon, and Ron Buckley, a registered nurse and amateur fossil hunter from Florence, Kentucky, were the lucky amber-obsessed duo to discover it.
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]