Trace Material Parsons Healthy Materials Lab

In this episode we go on a journey led by revered mycologist John Michelotti into the forests of the Catskill mountains to learn the basics about what makes mushrooms so special. Can fungi change the way we approach our ecosystem? Can they give us healthier food systems, healthier bodies, healthier materials, and healthier housing? That’s what we want to explore this season, and there was no better place to start than deep in the woods with an expert.

Visit catskillfungi.com to schedule a mushroom walk or purchase a mushroom extract. Give them a follow on instagram @catskillfungi

For more information, head to our website at healthymaterialslab.org/podcast, or give us a follow on Instagram @healthymaterialslab and Twitter @parsons_HML. If you've been enjoying this season, please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

The power of fungi has been neglected by academic institutions and marginalized in the larger society. By the 1960s the American imagination had linked fungi to magic mushrooms, the counterculture movement, and Nixon’s war on drugs. That lingering association has meant that American mycophiles have gathered in community at the margins.

We wanted to dig into those margins with William Padilla Brown, a citizen scientist who’s been thriving at them. William is the founder of Mycosymbiotics, and he both sells and researches mushrooms. We went down to Pennsylvania to talk to him about what it took to become a renowned citizen scientist, and what makes the fungi community so special.

Here's where you can find more from William:
Instagram: @mycosymbiote and @mycosymbiotics
Website: mycosymbiotics.com

For more information, head to our website at healthymaterialslab.org/podcast, or give us a follow on Instagram @healthymaterialslab and Twitter @parsons_HML. If you've been enjoying this season, please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

Did you know that Mycelial networks can break down dead plant or animal matter and they can connect with the roots of living plants to share nutrients between them? Whether that was news or not, mycelial networks are much more complicated than you might imagine. 
To get down in the dirt with them, we spoke with Maya Elson. Maya works with CoRenewal, a nonprofit dedicated to providing education and research in ecosystem restoration, where she leads projects around post-fire bioremediation and ecological generation. She also runs her own organization: Mycopsychology. She calls herself a ‘mycelial networker.’

For more information, head to our website at healthymaterialslab.org/podcast, or give us a follow on Instagram @healthymaterialslab and Twitter @parsons_HML. If you've been enjoying this season, please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

Mycelium based materials have a wealth of potential applications. But how does a new material get out of the experimental phase and into mass production? That transition is often where material development can stall.

Luckily, that isn’t happening with mycelium. In this episode, we speak with Gavin McIntyre, who is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Ecovative. Ecovative is a revolutionary company at the forefront of the mycelium industry. He leads us through the journey Ecovative has taken to get mycelium products into homes across the world.

For more information, head to our website at healthymaterialslab.org/podcast, or give us a follow on Instagram @healthymaterialslab and Twitter @parsons_HML. If you've been enjoying this season, please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

We’ve spent this season tracing how fungi, and especially mycelium, can shake up industries and remediate the harm caused by climate change. We’ve talked about foraging, growing, healing and commercializing mycelium. But there’s one frontier we saved for this episode, the last of this season. It’s one that, here at Healthy Materials Lab, we’re honestly most excited about: affordable housing.

We speak with Chris Maurer and the team at BioHab, who are building housing with mycelium.  This project represents the culmination of our exploration of fungi (and aligns with HML’s big audacious goal of making all affordable housing with healthy materials). BioHab is, all at once, addressing waste issues, food insecurity, carbon sequestration, affordable housing, circularity… all powered by fungi.

Here's a link to the recording of our Trace Material Live event with Chris.

For more information, head to our website at healthymaterialslab.org/podcast, or give us a follow on Instagram @healthymaterialslab and Twitter @parsons_HML. If you've been enjoying this season, please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

Trace Material explores the intersection of our lives and the lives of the materials that surround us, one material at a time. This year, for Trace Material’s third season, the podcast team at HML is investigating fungi.
Does this mysterious kingdom hold the keys to a healthier future? Tune in this summer to find out and subscribe today!