And this might revolutionise both building and also fashion because you can make a kind of leather like material from this fungus. Building materials that can be grown on waste products from agriculture, that will decompose when their job is done. Fungus, as Merlin Sheldrake writes in Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures (Random House), is everywhere, yet easy to miss. “There are also building materials that people are starting to develop using fungi. Melvin explained: “There are so many fungal drugs and so many fungal drugs yet to be discovered that can change our lives and societies in unimaginable ways. Of course, mushrooms and other fungi aren't just good for eating or medicines, like Penicillin, but they can also help us think of more sustainable ways of living. Sheldrake is an expert in mycorrhizal fungi, and as such he is part of a. The whole history of life on land is in many ways, a history of fungal relationships.” Earlier this summer I spent two days there, wandering and talking with a young plant scientist named Merlin Sheldrake. All plants descend from this relationship with fungi. “ behaved as their root systems which grow in and around their bodies and wove their way into the soil and forage nutrients and water for them from the soil. When quizzed by Chris about what huge historic events took place, and why they’re connected to mushrooms and fungi, Melvin responded: “The ancestors of plants wouldn't have made it out of the water and onto the land about 500 million years ago, if it wasn't for their relationships with with funghi.

Biologist and writer Merlin Sheldrake is a top expert in the life of mushrooms and other fungi, and while chatting on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky, Merlin shared why fungi are so important not just to evolution, but to life as we know it today.

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