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Fuzzy Frosty
Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute
This smiling Frosty is no ordinary snowman—he's made entirely of mold.
The living artwork is the creation of Stephanie Mounaud, an infectious disease researcher at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Rockville, Maryland.
For the last several Christmases, Mounaud has used the different strains of mold that she works with to create holiday-themed fungal art.
The snowman pictured here was made by combining four different fungi, including common strains such as Aspergillus niger and rarer ones such as Penicillium marneffei.
Getting the colors just right for her artwork was tricky and required growing the right fungi on the right medium. For example, "the color that you see in the snowman is made from the spores," hardy reproductive forms of fungi used for dispersal, Mounaud explained.
To coax the fungi to create spores, Mounaud used a nutrient-poor growth medium. "When you give them a starved condition, the fungi really want to produce their spores because they feel they're in an environment where they need to survive," she said. (See a video on the hunt for the abominable snowman.)
Published December 21, 2012
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Fungal Flocking
Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute
A lab-grown Christmas tree is decorated with fungal tinsel and ornaments.
To create each piece, Mounaud began by drawing out the design on a piece of paper and then taping it to the back of the petri dish where she planned on growing her fungi. Before actually plating, or applying the fungus to the dish, Mounaud thought about which fungal strains to use to create the desired colors and effects.
"It sounds like a lot [of work], but because the fungi are almost second nature to me, it doesn't take a lot of planning or time," she said. "I know what's going to happen, and I know what they're going to do. It's pleasure work."
Published December 21, 2012
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Fleeting Message
Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute
Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.
Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.
"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.
For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.
The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.
The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.
Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."
Published December 21, 2012
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Fungi Are Friends
Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute
Another fungal Christmas tree is this time a traditional green and topped with a yellow star made with the fungus Talaromyces stipitatus.
Mounaud said that she hopes her fungal artwork will help people develop a better appreciation for the mold that surrounds them.
"Fungi act in so many ways to help us, and hopefully this will help show people that. They're not just gross and smelly. They're also really cool," she said.
Published December 21, 2012
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