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Comment by hinkley | Hacker News Reader

Obligatory picture of Paul wearing his mushroom hat? Check.

The picture of “Paul” is Paul Stamets, The Godfather of Fungus.

> 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."

Yup. He gets into it on JRE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ

Amazing podcast. Well worth a listen.

Yep. I believe I read that the real Paul Stamets is an advisor for the show, too.

Well, I think "advisor" is probably more like it, because it does the science of mycology quite the disservice. Beyond playing fast and loose with the science for the sake of the story, there are basic mistakes that I doubt that the real Paul Stamets would have let slip through.

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqwe016dDpA&t=1m48s

Why would the HN crowd be hostile towards FeministFrequency?

I should have said "significant sub-section", not implied HN as a whole.

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.

Anyone else catch him on Joe Rogan? He got real weird at one point and said he couldn't talk about a topic because it would put his life in danger

Yes! It was a good podcast but got incredibly weird at that point. I took him as not a bullshitter so it's either true and something amazing must be being covered up or perhaps he got the wrong end of the stick somehow.

It certainly was a weird part of the otherwise fascinating podcast.

I did a bit of digging after the show, he said that it would be "an explosive issue" or something- but the way he emphasized "explosive" made me think it was a hint- and so it was.

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.

Agreed, that has to be it. Apparently there is some sort of law suit or something going on about the cancer causing properties.

Yes! I did the very same thing and came to that same conclusion.

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