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Feeling mouldy? Find your network
Are fungi friend or foe? Both, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL — but when they do more harm than good in our homes, we should take a page out of their book and create our own powerful networks
Fungi in the landscaped gardens at the National Trust's property at Stourhead, Wiltshire

LAST MONTH, a man in the US named Tyson Bottenus made worldwide news due to an extraordinary illness. What he initially thought was a brain tumour turned out to be a rare fungus that had travelled through his blood, crossed through the blood-brain barrier and took up residence deep inside his skull, where it grew and eventually caused a stroke.

Thanks to medical treatment he is recovering well, but unfortunately has sustained brain damage that, for the moment at least, has significantly changed his life.

This isn’t the first case of fungi infecting living bodies. Cordyceps is a fungus that infects some insects, takes control of their bodies’ extended nervous system and forces them to find a place to die where the fungus’s spores will travel best.

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