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I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
61–70 of 192 posts
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#62Although it's not quite the same thing, this reminds me a bit of amnesic shellfish poisoning. In addition to all the terrible gastric problems ASP has the curious side-effect of severe permanent anterograde amnesia, where all memories before the incident are retrained, but the poisoned individual can't create new long term memories. So they're limited to working memory which only lasts a few seconds. However research…
If you're ever in SF and have a bit of an afternoon, the Marine Mammal Center, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, is a fantastic afternoon. It's free to wander about and tours cost ~$10/person. Perfect for an afternoon with the nieces and nephews. They cover ~600 miles of coastline on the western US, including Hawaii, and help with marine mammal rehab and study.
One of the KEY functions of the center is the monitoring of demoic acid in marine mammals, the cause behind Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning. Much like us terrestrial mammals, demoic acid is a heck of a terror for marine mammals too. When lots of seals and otters show up with high amounts of demoic acid in them, the Marine Mammal Center can issue alerts to local health officials to help us humans steer clear of seafood and to increase monitoring of the oceanic food chain.
As of this last weekend when I was there, they state that they have never seen such an outbreak of demoic acid poisoning on the west coast going back to about 1984.
The Marine Mammal Center is a fantastic place filled with great volunteers and incredible staff. Everyone there is super knowledgable and super dedicated to our oceans. If you have never been, it's a great time and perfect for the little ones. More info here: http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm curious if parents still admonish their kids not to eat wild mushrooms. Absolutely. Really, eating anything you find in the wild is risky unless you’re completely sure what it is. (Wild strawberries are pretty easy to identify, for example.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock_strawberry They fooled me once. I picked and ate one, noticed it didn't taste right almost immediately. Once you look more closely, the fruit is quite obviously different in shape and texture, but the leaves are near-perfect and the fruit is the right color. It certainly gave me a quick and fortunately danger-free reminder that there's a world of difference between "hey that looks l…
Did it taste any good on its own behalf? What a neat plant!
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#64In France, you can bring your wild mushrooms to any local pharmacy, and they will ID them for you as a free service. Seems like it would be a useful service to US foragers too!
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#65Although it's not quite the same thing, this reminds me a bit of amnesic shellfish poisoning. In addition to all the terrible gastric problems ASP has the curious side-effect of severe permanent anterograde amnesia, where all memories before the incident are retrained, but the poisoned individual can't create new long term memories. So they're limited to working memory which only lasts a few seconds. However research…
Well you can add that to my list of horrifying potential outcomes of being human. > For instance if an amnesiac individual is asked to draw the same image repeatedly, they may still improve in speed and efficiency without any conscious memory of drawing the image. So it's basically a human version of cache timing attacks. O.o
>Well you can add that to my list of horrifying potential outcomes of being human.
Pretty much, fortunately it's very rare. However you shouldn't eat sport caught shellfish without first checking for local warnings regarding harmful algal blooms.
At least in the US/Canada all store bought Seafood is thoroughly screened for this specific problem, because ASP was discovered in Canada after a mass poisoning event in the late 1980s.
Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds was loosely based on an invasion of tens of thousands of delirious seabirds thought to be suffering with ASP in Santa Cruz in 1961.
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#66Huh: "I mistook them for inky caps [...] even though I spotted an Amanita nearby [...] I should have been more suspicious as mushrooms do grow in colonies." "I couldn’t find my Mushroom book, was in a hurry, so I trusted my judgment, fried them up in olive oil, and ate them as a side dish." "I should have recognized then that they weren’t inky caps, because inky caps exude a black substance when you fry them." "At th…
> That's... a lot of interesting decisions, for something potentially so deadly
The thing with bad decisions is, most of the time, they work out OK, until they don't. This gives people a false sense of confidence, which makes a eventual downfall more surprising to them.
Every drunk driver who causes an accident has driven drunk hundreds of times before without causing one. They think they drive better drunk than most people do sober. They get away with it many many times, until one time they don't.
The same rule applies to the lab technical who doesn't wear proper PPE, the researcher who doesn't double-check their Excel formulae before sending the paper for publication, etc.
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#67> "With early diagnosis, another experimental treatment includes massive doses of penicillin to stimulate the liver’s defenses." The solution to fungus is... more fungus! Really goes to show the incredible breadth of this form of life.
How so? This is pretty much the same idea as an Irish petty king inviting in some Norman troops to show the other petty kings who's boss. (It turned out to be the Normans, of course.) Penicillin works by killing other similar things.
Penicillin kills bacteria. The two are not similar at all! Nor is penicillin (a fungus) even remotely similar to a virus. Doesn’t stop people from taking them for any illness I guess.
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#68In France, you can bring your wild mushrooms to any local pharmacy, and they will ID them for you as a free service. Seems like it would be a useful service to US foragers too!
How do all these pharmacists get trained in mushroom identification?
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found interesting that he closes his post with an excerpt about how safe mushroom picking is, and how adverse outcomes only happen to ignorant fools who know nothing about mushrooms and don’t bother learning. In an article that opens with “here is a list of things I know and books I read, and here’s how I poisoned myself anyway.”
Mistaking Amanita virosa for inky caps is like mistaking a grapefruit for a pear. I don't understand how you can make this mistake if you have even minimal mushroom foraging experience.
When they are small, and if you only go by your own memory I'm sure it can happen...
"Destroying angels are sometimes mistaken for edible mushrooms such as young puffballs, button mushrooms, and meadow mushrooms."
Re: I Survived the “Destroying Angel” (2006)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mistaking Amanita virosa for inky caps is like mistaking a grapefruit for a pear. I don't understand how you can make this mistake if you have even minimal mushroom foraging experience.
When they are small, and if you only go by your own memory I'm sure it can happen... "Destroying angels are sometimes mistaken for edible mushrooms such as young puffballs, button mushrooms, and meadow mushrooms." https://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/death-cap.html
I mean all of those at least look vaguely like amanitas in their full or immature form. Whereas inky caps look NOTHING like amanitas in any form.
It's more like confusing a grapefruit with a kitten or something.