PhD Researcher, Fungi, at Kew Gardens and, Queen Mary University of London If you’ve ever stopped to admire a birch tree, you may unknowingly have something in common with a 5,300-year-old mummy ...

It ages me to think that my current students were just a twinkling in their parent’s eye when Otzi the Iceman was discovered - almost 30 years ago - but it seems like yesterday. I remember when this ...

In 1991 a 5,000-year-old corpse was found in a glacier in the Ötztal Alps of Italy. The oldest natural human mummy ever found in Europe, the Iceman, or Otzi, became famous for the glimpse he gave us ...

A fungus that bursts from the bark of birch trees can produce a volatile molecule with the sweet smell of pineapple—an aroma usually formed by a mixture of many compounds (J. Agric. Food Chem. 2019, ...

Learn essential spring foraging techniques for safely identifying and harvesting birch polypore. Get expert insights, practical tips, and field-ready guidance to make your next outing a success.

You're accident prone and out in the wilderness without a first aid kit. Bad idea, but thankfully you can make a band-aid out of birch tree fungus in a pinch. This trick feels appropriate coming from ...

Tell me about the hat you’re wearing. It’s made from a birch polypore mushroom. Our ancestors realised that you could get this tough bracket fungus off birch trees, hollow it out and put fire in it ...

If you’ve ever stopped to admire a birch tree, you may unknowingly have something in common with a 5,300-year-old mummy called Ötzi. In 1991, hikers found Ötzi in an alpine glacier on the ...