The picture of “Paul” is Paul Stamets, The Godfather of Fungus.
Huh -- I guess that's the source of the name of the engineer on Star Trek: Discovery (also Paul Stamets). He works with the "mycelial network."
I wouldn't be surprised if the HN crowd is a bit hostile to FeministFrequency, but if you can skip over that you may enjoy this guest-podcast (meaning none of the FF regulars have anything to do with this particular podcast episode) by Emily Taylor, a mycologist-turned-game designer, where she explains all of the mycology-related issues of the show:
I don't think it's controversial to say that the Ven diagrams of start-up loving nerds, and the type of entitled young men who have an axe to grind with FF are likely to have a non-empty intersection.
Amazing podcast. Well worth a listen.
It certainly was a weird part of the otherwise fascinating podcast.
Turns out portobello mushrooms contain a decently large amount of agaritine, which can be made in to hydrazine, which can in turn be used for explosives or rocket fuel. Agaritine is also fairly cancerous/mutagenic to humans.
That's my best bet as to why he wouldn't talk about it, though the threat to his life I would think is more for comic effect.
The flammability is measured by the fact that they burn very slowly, like charcoals. On the flip side, they easily take sparks and aren't necessarily obvious that they're burning until they start getting pretty hot. While this makes them ideal for lighting fires with in damp areas, I would think it makes them a poor choice for headwear -- though of course cotton and felt hats take to flame pretty easily too.