this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
1035 points (98.9% liked)

Science Memes

10885 readers
4242 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sure, if you're weak. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laetiporus

It's not near 50% of people though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

It seems I misremembered this story that I read years ago after eating some and feeling queasy for several hours:

To add a caveat, in 2004 when the current edition of the Encyclopedia of Fungi was launched at a National Trust property, to which 60 journalists were invited for lunch, there was an incident involving this species. On the day before, we had found a specimen of Laetiporus sulphureus in prime condition, on Oak, which was collected and incorporated, lightly sauteed, as part of the meal.

Approximately half an hour after ingestion, 6 of the 60 journalists became violently ill – vomiting, cyanosed, sweating, icy cold, with raised pulse, and very frightened. The remaining 54 suffered no ill effects.

The doctor who attended diagnosed a severe allergic reaction and the symptoms subsided after about 2 hours.

Subsequent investigation turned up research by a US-based toxicology team at the University of Berkeley, California. It had concluded that 10% of the people taking part in extensive trials, suffered these severe effects. Our experience was exactly in line with this figure.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that Laetiporus sulphureus growing on Taxus hosts, is potentially lethal.

https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/10/31/eating-the-chicken-of-the-woods/