Of all mushrooms commonly consumed, oyster mushrooms in the genus Pleurotus stand out as exceptional allies for improving human and environmental health. These mushrooms enjoy a terrific reputation as the easiest to cultivate, richly nutritious and medicinally supportive.

The virus-to-cancer connection is where medicinal mushrooms offer unique opportunities for medical research.

Lions mane may be our first smart mushroom. It is a safe, edible fungus that appears to confer cognitive benefits on our aging population.

Mycologists are few and far between. We are under-funded, poorly represented in the context of other sciences - ironic as the very foundation of our ecosystems are directly dependent upon fungi, which ultimately create the foundation of soils.

If you do not know where the mushroom products you are consuming are grown, think twice before eating them.

If we just stay at the crest of the mycelial wave, it will take us into heretofore unknown territories that will be just magnificent in their implications.

Chaga is significant in ethnomycology, forest ecology, and increasingly in pharmacognosy. Its long-term human use and cultural eastern European and Russian acceptance should awaken serious researchers to its potential as a reservoir of new medicines, and as a powerful preventive ally for protecting DNA.