Hello, everybody. Welcome again to another episode of Dr. Jill Live. Today, I have a special guest that I just literally met a week or two ago. If you hadn't caught my episode, I think it's around number 91. It's called Breathe. What to do after the wildfires. I got on with Dr. Lynn Patrick and Dr. Louise Tolzman, who have both been instrumental in environmental medicine and really talking about what we can do about the air quality after wildfires and also about what we can do for our bodies to detoxify. So if you missed that episode, check that out. But thanks to Louise, Dr. Tolzman, she introduced me to Levi, who I think is Levi, what you prefer? Levi, yeah. Levi, okay, got it. Levi Durr, and he's the owner of Fungia. How do you say your farm? Yeah, Fungaya, like. Fungaya, okay. Fungaya Farm, a mushroom company in 2011 founded in Humboldt County, California. I will formally introduce him in just a moment. I'm super, super excited to have him here because as Louise was sharing after her conversation with him, we can actually use mushrooms. We'll hear all about that today to remediate our soils after the fires. I am certain this is going to be really valuable information. Many who've been listening or if you've been watching the news at all, no, but just in case you don't. In December 30, just a little over a month ago, we had one of the most massive wildfires in destruction in the history of Colorado or state. It destroyed nearly a thousand homes and businesses and they were all in my neighborhood of Louisville and Superior, literally all around my office in Superior, Illinois or Superior, Colorado is destruction and devastation and neighborhoods that are completely gone. And the great thing about today's content is I'm going to learn right along with you from leave on, and I feel like this will be really, really practical in the next months and years going forward, because we know that there's all this devastation and what's going to happen, especially on those areas of grassland that were burned is the soil is bare. And so as it gets dry and the snow melts, we're going to have a lot of dust and debris and things. And as we talked about in the previous presentation within these charred remains of the homes and things are so many toxic chemicals. So we're going to dive in today about maybe one of the solutions that you hadn't heard about before in mushrooms. And I am so so excited to introduce my guest, leave on dirt, like I said, fun Gaia farm a mushroom company in 2011 in California. He's a passionate ecologist and spent most of his adult adult life farming and learning from nature leave on hold certifications in permaculture design permaculture teacher training mushroom cultivation and micro restoration, which is the topic of today. Through his journey with permaculture and mycology he became more and more fascinated with the ways that we as humans could not only find balance with our surroundings, but also helps heal some of the wounds that have been inflicted on our earth.  So welcome leave on I am super excited to learn with you and our listeners today about mushrooms. Thank you. I love starting with story so I would love to know here a little bit about how you got into this but how did you get into mushroom farming and ecology and all this passionate business I love it. Yes, I was a avid wild mushroom crafter in my late teens and early 20s and that kind of got me more interested in learning about ID, lots of the, you know, beautiful fungal, you know, flushes that we have all throughout California, spend some time up in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest is just you know, well known for our beautiful forest and old growth that we have and and also the tremendous amount of rain we have which the mushrooms love the mild climate gives us a really long mushroom of fruiting season. And so it's a spectacular place to to Wildcraft mushrooms. That led me into interest in cultivating mushrooms, looking at cottage businesses that kind of had a good niche for our area, our mild climates also a great place to grow mushrooms so promoting that in our area for folks. And then need the need and that that to provide and be able to give people the tools and supplies that they need to grow their own food. So we set up our business in 2011 fungi a form. And we initially started supplying folks with spawn and things to grow their own mushrooms. And then we and then we transitioned and added a fresh mushroom and medicinal mushroom production to to our to our business also. Wow. So you basically help people who want to grow their own do you also sell grown like do you have a farm and you sell the produce from it or multiple different ways. Yeah, not not very much vegetables. We grow a lot of food for ourselves we do a little bit of excess sales you know at the local market, but yeah fresh mushrooms we do oysters lines main and shiitake mostly fresh mushrooms. And then we also grow reishi and dry lion's mane for our tinctures and we Wildcraft turkey tails, and we grow cordyceps mushrooms for our tincture line to. Oh, I love this so as a position who's in functional medicine. We use mushrooms all the time for brain health and recovery from brain injury lions mains particularly good post concussion I'm sure you know. I'd like to know what you know about again because you might have as much or better knowledge as the medicinal purposes of these. But do you want to briefly talk about reishi and cordyceps and lions main and some of the ways that you see people using them. Sure, sure. medicinal mushrooms that you know they have a lot of overlap with you know the health benefits that they have, but they also have very specific things that they can address for folks you know, and reishi has been known for a long time as this, you know, really good builder for your immune system supplies and a lot of nutrients and minerals and vitamins and better glucans and polysaccharides that are building blocks for a lot of our body systems. And so not that we don't find these things in other places in nature in plants and other things that we eat, but in mushrooms are extremely concentrated. So, and they do have some unique things like, for instance, lion's mane or cordyceps, you know, cordycepsin or RNA CA compounds that are very specific and aren't found in nature, you know, and other things that we eat. And so they can, they can address really, you know, specific ailments and concerns that people have you touched upon lion's mane, which is, you know, an incredible regenerative for the cellular structure of nerves and brain tissue and connective tissue. And so a lot of people suffering from a wide variety of those ailments or ailments that cause damage to those systems can, you know, benefit from regular use and, and, you know, eating mushrooms is great, they lower your cholesterol, they give you protein, they're full of vitamins and nutrients. But getting the medicinal dose is really important for folks that are trying to address, you know, health concerns. So, tinctures and supplements are a great way to get that regular usage where you can take that a couple of times a day and really see if that's something that helps you. Wow, love it. Yeah, because again, I use all those in clinical practice and make recommendations for full disclosure, I'm allergic to mushrooms. So I have to say that like, and I have a lot of patients who have mold illness and I want to just see this, the obvious here. First of all, often in the very beginning when people are really sensitive to mold or fungally colonized, they don't do great on a lot of mushrooms, but I give this question all the time so I'm just wording it off. Unless you're completely allergic to them, often after mold treatment remediation and stuff for your own, you know, physical body, you can tolerate these again. So this is one of the things best to talk to your doctor about, but as I get some of you go what about mushrooms I thought I shouldn't eat those. I don't think that's true for everyone at all if you have even if you had a fungus your mold exposure. If you truly have an allergy. And interesting you mentioned beta-glucan, that's one of those components that's in these mushrooms that's so powerful for immune support. We actually use the supplement, you know, the derivative, the beta-glucans for immune support and these mushrooms. And as you mentioned, cordyceps and reishi contain that, or maybe all of them a little bit. Yeah, a little bit all of them, yeah. Yeah, exactly.  That's right, I was talking to my colleague who we both treat mold related to environmental toxicity and illness and we're both saying it's a love hate relationship like we really do clinically use mushrooms we love them I'm a huge advocate so don't get me wrong here. So those questions if someone's in the midst of a severe colonization of fungal issues or mold toxicity. Sometimes it's best just to temporarily take them out and then add them back in at a later day and there it's all balance. But they're, they're powerful and part of what we're talking about is, so my background is, again, mold in the environment and how it affects the human body, and it's on this right and what it does is it remediates material, which is what we're going to talk about because it can choose up and eats up and just, you know, causes it good to go back to the form that it should be. But if it's in our house maybe not so good. Even when we're farming we have to wear respirators and stuff just because the amount of spores, you know, specifically like oysters or racie or something, and certain spores germinate faster and are more irritant to our lungs than other, you know, spores, so the size, the shape, the variety of spore that it is.  I'm so glad you said that because that's again I'm such a big fan of what we're going to talk about. I think it could be for almost anyone, even someone like myself to have in my home. But like I love the caveats because of course my population, a lot of the listeners are like, we have mold illness, what do we do so just that precautions and things. But it doesn't mean you can't necessarily eat them or take them or do that and again, it depends. So let's talk about like what kinds of mushrooms are best for and first of all just remediation in general. We know that mold and spores and fungi in general, their job is to turn over the earth. Tell us a little about this background and why it's important to, you know, someone after the fires. Yeah.  And if we didn't have them, we would be standing in, you know, 100 feet of organic waste, you know, on the planet. So they dissolve everything around us, you know, break things down through this enzymatic like activity where the mushroom that we kind of refer to just to give a little context is kind of the generic name for the fruiting body of the organism. What the larger mass of the organism that we're talking about the fungi is the mycelium and this is the root like structure that grows through the substrate, be it the leaf mulch, you know, in the forest floor or a log, you know, in your backyard. This is where the big organism is existing. People have equated it to say, for instance, what you're seeing is the apple on the tree so the apple pops up out of the ground, but the tree is underground and that's the mycelium. Well, the way the mycelium eats its food is by secreting these really powerful enzymes, somewhat similar to like say our pancreatic enzymes that we use to break proteins and carbohydrates down. And so it's secreting these through these little hyphae threads, right? They kind of look like cobwebs. And these cobwebs can grow extremely fast and they can break down a wide, wide variety of materials and very, very dense bonds. So obviously its favorite food is carbonaceous materials. It's looking to eat like lignins and cellulose out of the materials and out of that get the sugar. Of course, they use minerals and other things to build their structure and that's why they're so medicinal. But when we're just talking about remediation, we're looking at using that same enzymatic process to break down other bonds, be it like chemical bonds or, you know, hydrocarbon bonds and things like that. So there's been a lot of great research looking at what fungi and molds and yeast can break down what different chemicals. So we kind of have that knowledge now. There's been some great books written and people have researched all that. A lot of it's been in the laboratory setting and bringing that out into the real life in the field is kind of where the movement is right now. It's understanding how to take a biological organism and give it these various brief specific parameters of humidity and temperature where it's comfortable to live. And then if there is a contaminant that we're looking at breaking down, like say hydrocarbons for instance, how can we create the environment where that mycelium will thrive and also come in contact with the hydrocarbon and also molecularly disassemble the hydrocarbon so it can get at that carbohydrate bond.  So love this. So basically, what you're starting to teach and give, you know, opportunity for people in your state of California and we'd love to do that here too is to how could we actually grow or use the mushrooms. Would you use it in like say we have these subdivisions that are gone and of course with the debris there is concrete and I mean it's just nasty. There's still yards and stuff but then there's also these areas of just grassland or area where it just, you know, went open space and it just completely obliterated the grass cover. Where would you recommend like say the city of Louisville wants to use mushrooms. How would you advise a city on rebuilding after wildfire and use of mushrooms. Great, great. Well, because I give these talks, you know, frequently and I get a lot of questions from folks. I like to just clarify so there's, there's, there's the process of pulling toxins out of the ground and and embedding them into something, which is what you use for like phyto remediation where you plant grasses or some flowers and or alfalfa and you pull the contaminants say, for instance, lead or cadmium or some toxic heavy metal and you pull that up into the plant. Mushrooms are capable of doing that which also makes them a candidate for being toxic to because they can be full of lead. That's my next question. We're good to like if you can, can you eat these because I'm assuming no. But when it comes to organic compounds, again, like say hydrocarbons or, you know, man made chemicals like pesticides or flame retardants, we can use the mycelium to break down and this and molecularly disassemble those bonds and and let them and let the mycelium get at that carbohydrate that it wants to eat. And then we end up with base salts, some gases, and this non toxic, you know, substrate if we if we've broken it down sufficiently. Mushrooms are capable, like we just mentioned, of bio accumulating heavy metals in in two of the three hydrocarbon remediations we did using oyster mycelium. We never fruited the mushrooms, right, we never, we never grew actual free body mushrooms. So we're just using the mycelium. Okay, so that's that. So that's, you know, like the underground network right when you're doing the underground network right creating the fruiting conditions to bio accumulate the heavy metals into the fruiting bodies and then harvesting those fruiting bodies just as you would plants, and then removing that and throwing that into a landfill or incinerating it and reclaiming the metals or whatever is possible. But it's a lot more complicated than growing alfalfa or some flowers. So that's where phyto remediation really excels, where micro remediation really excels is using the fungi is when you're just dealing with organic compounds like, you know, hydrocarbons, because metals don't really break down, you know, maybe supernova or something. I'm not sure what happens. But, but if, for instance, again, just use a classic example of like lead, you can bio accumulate that into plant matter and then remove that plant matter. So that would be something I would recommend for folks that are looking at heavy metal toxicity. But if there's, you know, flame retardants and chemical spills and hydrocarbons and things like that. That's where the mycelium really excels and actually breaking those contaminants down and biodegradable so it can just be. So let me as a lay person again this is all new to me someone try to reframe what you said and see if I'm getting it right for the listener. So it sounds like the mycelia which is that network that's underground it's not really the fruiting so we wouldn't even see any in the classroom so you just plant this.  Okay, you have to cover say I was a homeowner my house burned and I want to rebuild and my yard is covered with hydrocarbons and stuff. Is this an example where you could actually put the mycelium in my yard and and put in what would happen if there's obviously there's burn there's no grass just dirt do you need a dirt ground cover what if there's grass there is it compete. That's a good question. So there is major challenges with the right time of year the temperature is is it too cold is it too hot is it too dry because you have this living organism you have to take care of, you know, so just to back up. So the first thing we always want to do is gather knowledge and you know this as a doctor right somebody comes to you and they say I think I have Lyme disease or like let's test. I think I have lupus or something right it's like no we have tests for that and it's the same with remediation test test test so you want to do hydrocarbon tests, we want to do chemical analysis, we want to do metal analysis. Got it. And that's your starting point what is actually the problem and what do I need to remediate. There's metals everywhere right, which are the really toxic ones and which are the toxic levels right. It's okay if we eat a little bit of zinc and a little bit of copper, but if we do much it's poisonous right, you know. And so that's where I always encourage people to start is find your local soil testing water testing company and contact them.  So as you start with testing love this because this is just what I do. So you just your soil. And then, and then finding out and you can either have like hydrocarbons flame retardants chemicals benzenes to lean whatever those are on air, or you're going to have metals which two different solutions to different solutions. People are looking at micro remediation for metals there was a report just published, where they were doing dried mycelial mats, and they were burying them in the soil to absorb lead they didn't really tell you how they were doing it they just said they got a grant and it was through this university. But it was a pretty cool project I could put links later to after this talk or what have you. I just popped up in my feed and I was like that's really interesting. There has been mushrooms that have found also to bio accumulate huge background levels of like radioactive isotopes. Again, sort of acting like a metal that the mushrooms were bio accumulating into the fruiting bodies, but super challenging to create those conditions to fruit the mushrooms. There's plants, just excel in absorbing heavy metals, this might be multiple years of planting alfalfa or grasses or there's also a couple mustards in the mustard family, very hardy, you know, mustards that grow like weeds everywhere right there all over the planet. But you might be growing it, you know, planting two or three crops a year, collecting that biomass and drawing it and disposing of it, and then retesting the soil and seeing if your lead levels have gotten lower and lower right. It's so cool because it's so parallel to humans and say they have a letter of mercury we're using clay and charcoal and binders in the body and of course other things like alpha lipoic acid and glutathione. And so we're pushing the toxins out we're collecting them in the usually in the ball through the stool, and then we retest the human body and say is the level lower so it absolutely parallels. Exactly. Right, we are of the earth for sure. And these systems, you know, I like to point out to people that you know on the family tree, you know, plants and fungi branched off. Yeah, the millions of years later animals and fungi branched off so genetically we have a lot more similar processes to fungi than we do that's why they're not really a plant that they're not really an animal. They're definitely not vegetarian, they attack larvae. Wow, I didn't know I would have to talk about what else to do mushrooms do because. Yeah, they're very, very advanced beings yes and they've been here a lot longer than us. So surprise surprise they come across a hydrocarbon molecule and like what's a hydrocarbon.  So it's not like oyster mycelium, you know, pleurotus oestriatus is going to run like down into an oil field and eat on the oil we need to have that oil in a state we need to have that chemical in a state that's going to be, you know, hospitable to that mycelium for it to grow. And that sort of leads me to kind of describe the micro remediation process so for instance the two projects we've done hydrocarbons huge problem oil spills everywhere. People spill gasoline people have spills company has spills. It washes up on the beaches. We don't know what to do with it. The landfills are filling up nobody wants you know these these hazardous waste right. So along comes the fungi amazing remediator. So we did and two of the two of the three projects we did up here. We actually grew the mycelium out on burlap and straw. And we brought these roles of inoculated fully colonized with the oyster mycelium roles of burlap. And then we layered this in the sort of a lasagna type layer of contaminated soil with some straw with the mycelium with a little more straw with some contaminated soil. And you can read this whole report on our website if people are interested in implementing this in their in their own area. So we basically created these really small piles because we don't want to create a thermophilic like compost pile where it gets too hot for the mycelium mycelium wants to live at like 60 70 degrees not 140 120 degrees. And then we tarped everything we contain the soil right because it's contaminated it's a hazardous waste. We kept rain off of it and we treated these the soil in in the case of the diesel fuel spill we treated the soil twice in the case of the motor oil spill we treated the soil three times. So these projects took over a year to two years, partly because we're dealing with the cold winter and too hot summer and so we have these little spring and fall windows where we could get this mycelial growth to happen and get the remediation to take place. Wow that's so fascinating so yes we want links I'll be sure and share them if you're listening wherever you're listening will have links to this and your website for sure. Because this is fascinating to me I think what we're talking is some of the future of environmental remediation and climate change and all the things that we are dealing with right we need new solutions. This is actually a really old solution because mushrooms are so, but it's kind of like to me at least I'm fascinated and I love this. And you mentioned climate so again if we were going to use this in some area with the wildfires around our community, we're in Colorado is super dry is Colorado to dry for mushroom growth or could it be certain potential the year. Yeah, pretty much everyone has a time that that it's like, you know, below 70 degrees and they're in their community, you know, and you just finding those specific windows you know what's too cold then if 70s kind of the upper limit what's that is like like below 40. Right. Yeah, so you're really trying to find this perfect like the mid 60s. Got it. Yeah. It's like that's what pretty much most things are going to kind of thrive at. And so this takes monitoring. And, and like you mentioned, this is this is a very old technology. This is, we're just using this biomimicry of this process where if we all vanished today. It's still they just do it automatically. They just eat this computer, right. They eat my whole house computer right that it would all be gone in a few thousand years.  There is no a way when you when you decide to throw, you know, this contaminated soil, we're just moving it to someone else's watershed and sure it maybe the line the landfills lined, but that liner has a is a ticking time bond to right. Absolutely. Yeah, so fun guys going to eat that. And then it's just leaching into the river. And so it takes a long time for these like natural cycles to process all this material where we can speed this up by creating the perfect environment for the fun guy to live. That thought that brings us back like you said because this is what's already happening. This is what you know part of why mushrooms exist to this circle of life. But it makes so much sense to think about it as the way your company is teaching people to use it is just accelerating the process and giving you a specific space or home or you know, a place for this to happen. So from what you said, of course, my, my silly, what do you call them?  And that would be like you said with oil spills or any sort of hydrocarbon toxicity anywhere. Then we talked about the metals and the fruiting body now that's going to take more because you're actually growing and you have to really good conditions to get it to fruit. So you're going to throw that away or not throw it but you know, burn it or whatever because that would not be consumable due to toxicity right. Exactly. There's a, there's a great book Lila D'Arwish wrote a book called Earth Repair, and she kind of combined these three systems looking at phyto remediation, my micro remediation and bioremediation. And it's really interesting like when I read the book. So for those listeners and someone like me, phyto bio and my colleague, tell me what this is. Thank you. So phyto is using plants to remediate. Myco is using fungi to remediate and bio is using bacteria. Okay, okay. So really quickly you mentioned a few plants and I know you're not the expert in bio remediar, phyto remediation but what are some of the other common like phyto remediators in this realm. So we know that we, you know, that plants pull up minerals out of the ground and metals are just like another mineral to the plant. And some just seem to bind with them faster and pull them up out of the soil quicker. Of course, you know, you're also dealing just like with the micro remediation, you know, how deep are those roots going and how deep is that lead. I mean, what was exciting about our conversation is, if the ash is just right on top of the soil, then that's great. It's not as if there was a copper mine or something where these chemicals leached into like some sandy soil. Exactly. Which might need to be tilled and planted and tilled and planted until the metals, you know, really reduce. This is a huge problem in urban settings to people converting parking lots and old empty lots to community gardens, you know, where they can't use the soil that's there and stuff like that. So again, yeah, alfalfa is been found to pull up metals quite well. Pretty resilient grows in a lot of different environments, sunflowers again, right? Super hardy drought tolerant plant, big root system, plant them really close together, do a thick crop of them. And certain mustards have been found to be really good remediators. So also another aggressive, you know, really prolific vegetative drought tolerant, you know, a plant that you can work with. So I want to talk about species of micro remediators, but before I move to that, one thought is we have this natural shrubbery and grasses and stuff and some like competing things get introduced and then all of a sudden I can't remember the name of the tree that's now endemic here in Colorado that was brought in and do these, would any of these plants or these mushrooms take over the natural habitation or would they just do their thing and kind of. Great question. Great question. Right.  Exactly. Now there's ferrets everywhere. Totally. We've seen a lot of those all over, right? Oh, we're going to put this beech grass into control the dune, the sand drift in Humboldt County and now we have this invasive. Right. Exactly. So yeah, that is a good thought we can clone and and replicate local wild mushrooms. So that is an option that's totally viable. Wow. That means said oyster mushrooms are growing on like every continent on the planet, bringing in a you know, a more domesticated commercial oyster mushroom that we know is really aggressive grows in a more broad temperature range. The fact that we're not producing fruiting bodies that would produce spores. This is a very short life thing. The mycelium is dead in a couple months. Got it. It's a Plurotus Ostratus that the oyster mushroom that we used for our remediation does not live in soil. So we were asking it to eat all this straw. Got it. And come in contact with some soil that was soaked in diesel fuel. And as soon as it ran out of food, it died. Got it. It's like just a little food source. Yeah, it's kind of like that. So it's like, there's not a huge risk of it. Sporilating and even, even if we went there, if a mushroom fruited, and it's stored, if it wanted to cross genes with the wild oyster mushrooms like it could. And for that matter, everyone's growing this mushroom that I'm shipping all over the country constantly anyways. And so there's very little restrictions on these things like shipping to other countries or Hawaii even it's on the listed allowable, you know, Hawaii is very strict. Yeah, you know, it's probably pretty safe. So it's like very unlikely that it would go feral or cross. Got it. Even if it did, it has been for millions of years already.  Yeah. Okay, that makes so much sense. And something else you just mentioned that when we first started talking about because of listeners with mold and allergies, when we're doing these mycelias, micro remediation, we're not even growing the fruiting body to spore. So it's actually also less, if there is an allergy, it's less likely to cause an issue as well. Would you say that? Exactly. Yeah. And it's not that it wouldn't happen if you created fruiting conditions and I helped, I assisted with the project in town here. And they just happen to do it in the spring and it happened to be really foggy and drizzly and warm and rainy. And she took the tarps off and grew these giant plate size oyster mushrooms in her backyard. Of course, you know, we advise people not to eat those because they may be heavy metals in the hydrocarbons that you picked up, right? When you have engines grinding metal against each other, they can have heavy metals and waste, you know, hydrocarbon products. Yeah. Wow. So this is fascinating. And do you see communities, obviously with these big oil spills, it makes so much sense and that's so exciting what you've already been involved in in the future of that because we continue to have these accidents and ruin our environment. It's nice to have some solutions. But how would you see it for an average community? Like say you were to say for Lewisville and Superior, what would you see as possibilities to use mushrooms in the community where there's been wildfires? Would it be on the open space? Would it be in people's, I'm still trying to figure out like if people wanted to use them, could they, where would you recommend they do that or how? The first test so they need to know what's going on. Right. Right. Right. Testing. And then in the sense of, if we just take the fire, you know, as the issue, you know, when we had a diesel tank, you know, spill, it soaked seven feet down into sandy loam soil. Let's just say, let's say there wasn't heavy metals there before, you know, which there might be, but let's say there was, you know, there was just a home burn down and now there's chemicals from the ash and all the appliances and couches and everything. So it's very likely that the first two or three inches of soil is all that would need to be removed. Right. So I would take that and I would scrape that up. I would get it tested, obviously know what I'm dealing with. If it was heavy metals, I would do the fire remediation using plants. I would plant plants in the soil. I would harvest that biomass. I would dry it and then dispose of it. If it was hydrocarbons or some other, you know, organic compound, I would then address the right chemical for the right, you know, the right fungi for the right chemical. There's some great books out there. I'm always happy to consult with people on. So you're saying it's actually even deeper than that. Like it's very, there's, there's enough data that they say they have these three chemicals, there's probably some types of mushrooms that are better than others at remediation. Yes, yes. There's a reason why Turkey Tail are on the front of this book is because Turkey Tail is a huge remediator and surprise, surprise, Turkey Tails are growing on, you know, everything in my yard. They're growing on Doug Fur, they're growing on oak, they're growing on tan oak, they're growing on some apple cuttings, they'll grow on anything is basically the answer to that. And oyster mushrooms are another big remediator because they are super willing to eat a lot of different things. They'll grow on newspaper, they'll grow on straw, they'll grow on a huge wide variety of woods. So when you see that diversity where a sapiritic fungi, a wood digester is its adaptation is allowed it to eat a wide variety of different woods and break those bonds. If it can eat a conifer loaded with all these resins and right, and, and it can at the same time eat an oak like a hardwood, you can see the diversity of its digestion. You know, that's probably going to be a good micro remediator. Right, whether is, whereas some things are very, very specific, they only grow on these woods, you know, and, and so these books have like these folks in these books have researched all these different yeasts and molds, and it's not always 100%. Sometimes it degraded it 70%. Sometimes it degraded it 90%. Sometimes it degraded it 50%. And you had to do it three times to get it fully broken down. Oh, this is so fascinating. It's such a parallel to, again, I treat mold related illness. So I use different binders in the human body, and each of them have different identities for different types of molds. So I might have aspergillus or penicillin and use, you know, certain types of binders and then if I have stachy botchers or ketomium I'll use clay and charcoal and, and so it in a different way it's very similar to our bodies and Well, so this is fascinating. So is there anything we haven't talked about that your company does, obviously the power, or the micro mediation, the oil spills, you've done two separate specific endeavors that were written up on the oil spills, right? Yeah, yeah. So the, the report on our website is was our first like big project and so huge learning experience. So a lot of the report I wrote about what we did wrong because I really wanted to learn right that's how Don't repeat these wrong mistakes. This is what went right and the project was successful and it worked, but I want people to skip over the failures and get right to the success. The motor oil spill was great and I knew a lot more when we address that. That I made into a short YouTube video you can kind of see because I wanted people to really get the tactile experience of seeing the process in the field. And, and some of the challenges it was, you know, snowing where they were and then it was, you know, 100 degrees, you know, so we had to do three different treatments and the oil was very viscous and it came, it was just like this sloppy sludge of soil and so I noticed that the mycelium was having trouble penetrating in there. The straw was decomposing kind of fast. So we switched to some wood shavings and started mixing inoculated wood shavings in on the second and third treatment. And that was more successful. You see, we only got a 30% reduction the first time. And then we got a 70% reduction and then we got a 90% reduction. And we were like, okay, this is good enough for her for her, you know, to use as a driveway. This was used motor oil so we never did a heavy metals test, you know, so this isn't like, oh plant my veggies here now. Yeah. Cool. Well, this is so fascinating and I love it because it's a new topic that I did not know much about. And it's so parallel to what I do, you know, just like it's so important. Well, any last, first of all, I think we'll end with any future like things that you see that maybe haven't been done that you just based on what you've seen and known and like that you would love to see happening in your world of mycology and. Yeah. Well, the lovely thing about these technologies is they're very achievable by the average person right. There's plenty of reneediation companies out there that have solvents that will dissolve chemicals dispersants that will get the oil off the top of the ocean and send it to the bottom. You know, some of them are great. Some of them cleaned up completely. Some of them, you know, this technology, it's not a silver bullet. It's just another tool in our tool belt to have at our disposal. What's wonderful about it is anybody can grow some oyster mycelium right. Oysters are so forgiving. They're literally like the easiest mushroom to cultivate that you can take an oyster mushroom and cut the stem off and roll it up in some cardboard and start oyster spawn in your back. Wow.  So it's a very achievable thing like growing mustards or alfalfa. You can test the soil. It usually costs about 60s to 70 bucks to do a heavy metals test on your soil. And then you can test it after. Did I did I draw enough of the lead out of my soil? So we we are totally open for, you know, zoom consultations.  Obviously shipping is is not practical. These these micro remediation needs to happen in your local community and grow it. You can supply cultures and things like that. And things to get started. But, but yeah, this is something that people have to grow on site most of the time. I did ship a roll of anoculated burlap to a student in New York that was doing a micro remediation project. So the shipping was very expensive. Well, so where can people find you? Where is your website? And is there links there to out again, include whatever you share with me, but tell us where to find you. Yeah, yeah. So we're in Northern California, Northern Northern California, people think, you know, San Francisco, that's a long state. We're an hour from the border on humble, you know, right up right around the Bay and Humboldt County. Our website is fun guy farm.com. No, no, just to be sure. Yes, F you in G a I a farm.com. Perfect. Gaia farm.com. And we do classes and consultations and sell spawn and, you know, lots of, you know, supplies for people to grow edible medicinal mushrooms or do remediation. And we're obviously we're on Instagram, Facebook and all stuff like that. We love hearing from people we love hearing about projects that are people doing and just really love promoting, you know, this community action to, to, to, you know, clean, clean up the Awesome. Well, thank you for letting me be a part of what you're doing and interview you. It's so fun to learn new things. Love what you're doing. Thanks. Letting me know how I can support you. Great. Thanks for having me.


As a program manager at UH2, I generally focus on the timeline schedule and budget requirements of our program. So day to day that means that I spend a lot of time working with our engineers, trying to understand what they're working on today, what they need to be working on tomorrow, and getting everything in place to make sure that they have the resources available to be able to accomplish those goals.


Everybody forced here ripping two boxes for Gregory M. Gregory's got a 2020 prism Football multi-sello pack box and a 2022 gold standard football first off the line All right, let's do this multi-pack box first Appreciate you order Gregory is always here you go man That's fine. It's nice red white blues for Owen Herbert. Let's go Start the night off right You get everybody four hour queue is not a typo four hour four plus. I'll say four plus I mean after that it gets really hard to estimate how long all this is gonna take us How many coffee breaks I actually need tonight? I'll tell Sean before we started that a Brand-new Starbucks has opened literally on my way. I don't have to turn left or nothing turn right Get my stuff and go back out on my way. I'm like, oh, I Got the Starbucks app.  I Wish that place that we used to we ordered from a couple times was on the way It's in a pop somewhere Cam and coffee see a no way The food the food that I had there was good and the coffee was great But I have to work like an app. I would get it for sure that stuff was amazing. All right, here we go. Good luck Gregory So these will stick just a bit so I am gonna have to Loosen them up a bit. He's actually had this last night the mixer. All righty Green Broadway Joe this color match Gregor Eason Everybody at nobody wants to say anything. Hello, everybody. Happy Monday. Everyone's got the Monday scaries Monday's like my Friday though Monday Shawn's Monday green Michael Vic Lynn Bowden jr. What's going on? Dan? How you doing, man? There's everybody hello David Patrick. What's up guys? Happy Monday Another exciting week Well green Kyler hype Michael O'Jamudia work noise just started We're gonna last 30 minutes the longest 30 minutes every day Leonard for net green Oh nice watch on the big screen. I do that occasionally usually I watch them like my phone and kind of like listen Or like my laptop as I'm like cooking or doing whatever else occasionally I'll put Caleb or Sam or Kenzie on the big TV See the cards and all their glory all their 4k glory Green other Joe here. This is a don't want to have a nickname Classic Green emergence of Jerry Judy Yeah, hopefully hopefully some so please some big red and blues the greens and silvers are tougher to pull of course But red and blues is where we're hoping right? That's what we're hoping we see some stuff Joe cool. Oh, yeah, Joe cool. That's the name. Yep That's a pretty bland nickname, but I guess if he was the first one to have it it makes sense green Jalen Smith Jeff Ocuda What do you think about tonight? Open TCU wins Georgia don't look super sharp on defense against Ohio State, so who knows man. I think it's gonna be high scoring Both of the first playoff games are super high scoring Brady base Cards work with me. What do you guys think about tonight? So Joshua? What do you guys think about tonight? What's the what's the line? Joshua will know right off the top of his head. I know he will silver Brian Burns Jonathan Taylor emergence Trevon digs base Cool to see to be cool to see TCU wins So we were talking about last night and the last non SEC ACC and big 10 team to win a championship was Texas in 06 We're like, oh, yeah, I love I want to see you win even more I wanted them to win originally because I just don't want to see a repeat And like I don't want to see the SEC win. So rookie green and Tony O'gandy golden Yeah, TCU some new name up there Same damn team every year TCU so 13 with all this TCU by field go people. Yeah, yeah, two touchdowns majority. Yeah, that's what I figured it would be I figured like 10 to 14 or like 11 to 14 green drew lock On Jennings. Yeah, I'd probably take that though that line anyway. I'm not not saying to see we win but 14 and a championship is a lot Especially with how well TCU played against the Michigan defense Green brilliance Damian Williams But then again less time to prepare for For TCU probably means better things for Georgia Green rookie nice jail and herds. That's what's up right there Probably gonna be MVP runner-up, but MVP caliber season nonetheless for sure with him Awesome card there There's some dust on this we're gonna get off full spot spots there other than that. I mean looks pretty solid That's awesome. That's a great one right there Yeah center in looks pretty good from the from the first glance at it front and back nothing noticeable as far as like anything else so Dust it off get in the mag. So it's real nice and protected. You got single Terry Matthew Jalen Johnson Miles Jack Chris Jones and Grant Delpit Kerrigan Richard Sherman and Damon Arnett Roquan Smith Brian Bossworth Jeff Ocuda rookie Marlon Humphrey Carson Wentz and Travon digs rookie See some more QBs here. Come on now Rivers Shaq Thompson rookie Terrell Lewis Order rams Baker Mayfield Taysum Hill rookie Jonathan Taylor All right, get some solid rookies. Come on now Herbert Burrow to a Hertz. Come on now You know and rookie Darrell Taylor for Seattle What do you guys think Aaron Rodgers gonna do? I think he's gonna hang it up. Look Josh Think he's gonna request a trade It's just so much money on the table man. There's a Josh Allen tricolor rojo Michael a Jamudia Like 15 million a season if he just plays Donald van der Esch, maybe he just requested trade of Vegas the rookie Red-white blue Jordan love speed Rodgers Jordan love right there Yeah, wouldn't be surprised if there's like a mutual decision to get like traded somewhere Maybe they swap like Rodgers for like car or something like that Tyler Johnson Obviously other pieces of all but I mean both of those quarterbacks probably won't fresh starts Tyler Johnson red white and blue And the Vegas doesn't make sense though See why Hilton how much is it gonna how much of the Packers gonna want how much he's gonna get though Cuz like look what just happened with Russell Wilson. So like What's gonna happen, you know, all right Gregory photo gold standard Patrick you are not the first or the last person that'll happen to Not even close All right, rookie Jordan Davis to 75 Green TJ Watt first off the line nine out of 11 CD lamb Goldgear Jersey to 299. It's so weird that JJ Watt retired Like one of the best defenders ever Prime JJ Watt might be the best defender of all time Prime JJ Watts like him and like Dion Josh Jacobs five way relic 125 out of 299 other guys to LT Reggie White a bunch of but he's easily up there He is like on par on parallel with those players Tray Lance Gold Rush Jersey number to 299. Yeah, did you walk you keep playing? but It's gonna be ring chasing basically Rookie Otto Jermaine Johnson the second 179 of 199. Yeah, I saw the standing ovation I mean, he should he's first ball Hall of Famer prime lot like prime lot from like 13 to like 16 You could not he could do everything everything and A nice hit on the Nouveau Rache RPA with a partial logo patch George Pickens That that right there is sick 45 of 79 Gregory there you go, buddy. That's awesome, man Logo patch Nouveau Rache RPA. Oh Yeah, oh, yeah That's getting bad good stuff green hurts and that pickings is sick. Thanks, buddy. Get those out to you


Happy holidays, Columbia. Our City of Columbia family wishes you a joyous and wonderful holiday season. We hope it is filled with magical moments and memories with the ones you love. Here in the city, there is a lot to look forward to in 2023, but let's cherish 2022 first. Again, Merry Christmas and have a happy New Year.


So now what I would like to do is to ask the other two panelists to join Rita with your mic and video on and we will start with some questions. And I have one and perhaps you can just address them in the order in which you spoke. So the first question comes from Monica Monica Bosco, who says, in the past few years diversity and inclusion positions have become very popular in various organizations. Can you comment on the value of this really why don't you start. I guess what I would say I totally agree with that, but it's also been WS sword, I guess maybe about 10 or 15 years ago at a research institution I will not call the name of it. When they had a call for that position. They got about 80 or 90. Of those 75% of the people had a PhD in the stem field. And so part of the issue is that I think if they are given if the office is given the support of the president or chancellors of the institutions to actually make change. And I'm not talking about kind of cosmetic change. I think it could be very successful. But I do know that some of my colleagues who have been very active and trying to diversify science really have a concern that more and more underrepresented groups are leaving the research field and taking those kind of positions. What it speaks to as a large issue of not pitting one thing against the other, but having more people from what Rita was talking about if you have more people you can afford for people to go in different areas. The challenge right now is that for underrepresented groups. We don't have that luxury. That would be my take on it.  Sure. I agree with Willie it's definitely a double-edged sword because the fact that you have to have an office of minority affairs really again, again segregates and I find disturbing. But on the other hand, you need to pay attention to the issues. So I think we need to find ways, just as we did with advance to build this in from the bottom up but include the top down. In other words, the magic of the advanced program is that the president or the senior vice president is the PI and has to be accountable. And it has to deliver. And that changes the dynamic. So I think we need to have this top down bottom up. Pinscher, if you will, for effect. Yes, I agree with both Willie and Rita on this issue. I think that the important thing we must have is accountability. And I agree that accountability has to start at the CEO level, the person who is responsible for the activities of the entire organization unless that accountability begins at the top and is held as a requirement on everyone who is below. Progress cannot be made. And I think that's part of the history that we have seen in in our universities as well as in our in our corporations. People in the organization have to know that this is serious. And that they have to do. They have to be a part of the process and they have to be serious as well in making certain that the change has occurred and change is sustained. Otherwise, we will not see the progress that we need. Thank you. And now who's beginning to speed up on the questions thank you keep them coming because we will come back to them if we don't get them all today. There is a question from an anonymous attendee that asks that DEI efforts are being advertised but how does one deal with the pushback that diversity leads to less academic excellence. I will start we have to recognize that and expect that there will be pushback. But again, there has to be this commitment from the top that says regardless of that pushback, we are going to proceed. And that this is important for our organization, and that it is something that we are going to do, regardless of the fact that there are people who resist the change. I think that we have to be realistic and realistic approach says that there are some people who are not going to agree with what it is that we're we're trying to do. I try to bring them along, but even if they do not subscribe to the idea of making a change to make our organization more diverse and inclusive. We will continue to proceed along that journey because it is important not only to us, but to the nation. That is the only way I think that we can overcome the pushback that is inevitable. Let me jump in. I agree very much with john, but I would also add that we need to point out that diversity in business when you include the underrepresented on the boards, they make more money. It's more profitable. And that's because you bring in other perspectives. And I think the concern here is that that it's different to to have a representation so widely. But the point is that that representation brings other dimensions and makes the scholarship even more powerful. I think the negative approach is wrong. It needs to be positive. If business makes more money. Certainly we can produce a lot better and more science if we have complete ideas from every direction. So that's my my response on that issue. I'm going to go on to we have time for perhaps one or two more questions. I would note that the questions can be answered by typing an answer so any of the panelists both from this panel or others are please feel free to answer some of these questions. This question comes from a college freshman Molly Shan. She's at Harvard now, and she wonders about the fact that there are more subtle instances that that, for example, Rita, you heard overt no, or you can't do this or you don't belong here. And she says, However, I've noticed recently, there have been more subtle instances of discrimination where opportunities are not necessarily blocked for underrepresented groups in science but instead are framed as yes, with a condition attached. That's indeed the great iceberg in the report of the National Academy of Sciences. It is a diagram which is very powerful. And it shows that on the surface, you can see the iceberg but underneath, there's the tremendously larger portion that carries it and makes it floating in seawater. The under portion of the hidden slights, the hidden slurs, the hidden dissing, the actual pretending that the search is open when in fact it may not be. Yes, we still have to deal with this and be blunt about it. It's there. It's not, it has not gone away. And this is where, unfortunately, society has become less civil, but it still behooves us to work really hard to regain civility and to ensure equity and ensure honesty. We have to fight it. I don't know what else to say. William John, I think that applies not just to women in general, but certainly people of color from all of the groups that are underrepresented including I would hasten to add those who are disabled or have other reasons for gender identity, for example, for being excluded. So, where was I so how would you answer Molly with respect to those groups. At least for me, I think that the question is spot on but it's not actually new. The same things have been occurring ever since I can remember. But I do think with what Rita was saying that you, you, one thing I think that when you have a very good mentor, who's very honest and authentic. It tends to have an idea that these things are going to be there. And how do you best deal with them. But how do you best keep your own sense of self without being destroyed by those kind of things. And I know for myself has been one of those persons who was kind of the only one in my field but also going to different places that you just had to have a tough skin, but it can also be psychologically wearing on it. So you have to have, I think when you have someone else in your life who's a supporter of you could be a family member because we people in profession. You have to be prepared for that because it's not going to really change that much. And I think no matter what the field whether science whether sports whether it's anything else, you get the same kind of thing because there's a power dynamic when another group is seeing this losing some of its power, then you have that process so that's where I think that it's critical to have authentic mentoring. I had people who were my mentors who were really tough, but I was prepared to go out and understand that you don't give up.  And I think that's what happens that when you come down to situations of this kind of quiet and sometimes but it's still something that I've experienced and I suspect that all of us who are on this panel experienced something like that. There's no question that that's true and I agree with what both Rita and and Willie have said about the importance of recognizing that these things implicit bias and and confrontations can and will occur but I think we have a responsibility to help society understand that one can have equity and excellence at the same time and that quality and equality are not usually exclusive. I feel very strongly about that and I've seen it happen in life at one of the educational institutions that I serve. We focused on making certain that that was fully understand throughout the organization and even though it took a while to to overcome the reluctance of some alumni and and trustees to recognize and appreciate that it began to happen and I am convinced that we must focus on that if we are to see a sustainable change in the way underrepresented minorities and women are included in our science and engineering workforce. Thank you. And now even we have some excellent comments and questions that remain in the question and answer box. Any panelists please feel free to answer these and I would like to assure the attendees that these questions are being saved. And we will if nothing else address them in our final report which you will get a copy of.