Friday Fungus: Eating batteries and why bagpipes should be banned...

Some fungus going about its rotten business - loverly!

You'll have noticed just how good fungi are at rotting stuff. The mushrooms and their mouldy yeasty brethren are right at the heart of nature's processes for chewing up - recycling if you must - things that are lying around. Sometimes this is a problem - as people looking shocked at a dry rot growth on the house they left lying around discover. But sometimes - like with nappies - it's brilliant:

A team of scientists from the University of South Florida has found a natural way to recycle the tons of waste batteries. Lead researcher Jeffrey A. Cunningham and Valerie Harwood are using three strains of fungi – Aspergillus niger, Penicillium simplicissimum and Penicillium chrysogenum that are naturally occurring in decaying foods. They have presented their finding at the 252nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society that is held in Philadelphia until Thursday this week.

OK the researchers end up with an acidic soup filled with cobalt and lithium. And don't know how to get those lovely metals out. But it's still great and takes us a step closer to better battery disposal and recycling.

When it comes to rotting stuff, however, fungi aren't choosy. Lungs are good:

Playing the bagpipes could prove fatal, scientists have warned, after a man died from continually breathing in mould and fungus trapped in his instrument.

Doctors in Manchester have identified the condition “bagpipe lung” following the death of a 61-year-old man from chronic inflammatory lung condition hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

The condition is triggered by the immune system’s response to inhaling irritants. When the unnamed man was diagnosed in 2009 doctors were puzzled because his house contained no mould and he had never smoked.

Now I know you've always wanted a reason to ban bagpipes...

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