Fungus zone
4
Dr James bell
Obituary
1989-2014
Arguably the greatest coprologist of the 21st century, James Bell died during the compilation of this issue, whilst experiencing difficulties collecting sea cucumber faeces 5km below sea level.
Born in November 1989, James grew to be a keen diver who sold chips at the zoo, spawning a love of marine biology that endured despite his move to coprology in his later years. Residing in the poshest part of Essex throughout his childhood, his family could easily afford the £20,000 a week fee to have him educated at Poshington’s Super Excellence School, where he developed from a simple, monkeyesque boy who liked fish to a critical thinker, and crucially, a young scientist. Despite disappointing grades, he was able to enrol in his degree at the University of Southampton. It was here that he developed his intense, irrational hatred of the Atlantic Ditch Shrimp (Palaemonetes varians), because it was being studied by Phil Burchell at the time. This hatred, and his rivalry with Phil, would influence this earliest stage in his growing career enormously.
Towards the end of his Master’s degree, James co-founded SJIS with Phil, and published in it his first article, entitled ‘Animals poo on the seabed’. Unfortunately, this was not as well received as Phil’s ‘Atlantic ditch shrimp 2-4 week thermal acclimation duration period’, which to this day remains the greatest article ever published in science, and cemented the reputation of SJIS as
The culmination of decades of work has revealed recently that fungi invented the internet before humans did. How’s that for a minor SJIS feature? Approximately 90% of terrestrial plants are involved in symbiotic relationships with root fungi, forming the basis of the fungus internet. Through this network, distant plants can exchange (or steal) carbon, communicate dangers using chemical signals, transport toxins to compete with rival species and even interact with animals, amongst other things (e.g. Simard et al., 1997, McKendrick et al., 2001, Barto et al., 2011, , Babikova et al., 2013).
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet
Fungi invented the internet first