Radiolab from WNYC: From Tree to Shining Tree

July 31, 2016 10:19 AM

Forests feel like a place of great stillness but dig deeper and there's a hidden world beneath your feet as busy and complicated as a city.

In this story, a dog introduces us to a strange creature that burrows beneath forests, building an underground network where deals are made and lives are saved (and lost) in a complex web of friendships, rivalries, and business relations. It’s a network that scientists are only just beginning to untangle and map, and it’s not only turning our understanding of forests upside down, it’s leading some researchers to rethink what it means to be intelligent.

posted by jazon (3 comments total)

I liked the part about eating the forest floor. I'd also like to get back to the "fungus are more like animals than plants" thing...
posted by latkes at 10:12 AM on August 1, 2016

I just listened to this today, being roughly a month behind on my podcasts, and it's one of my favorite Radiolab episodes. My reaction may have been colored by the fact that I was walking through a forest while listening to it, which added to the experience.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:52 PM on August 31, 2016

This was easily my favorite Radiolab episode - it's a positively crazy story (trees talk to each other! With Fungus!) and they did a fantastic job of explaining the whole thing from the insides out.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:00 PM on October 4, 2016