Fungi: The New Frontier

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

BBC Radio 4 LW

Fungi: The New Frontier: The biggest show on Earth

The biggest show on Earth

BBC Radio 4 - Fungi: The New Frontier, The biggest show on Earth

Tim Hayward in a race against time to save fungi we’re only just beginning to understand.

Tim Hayward gets vertigo thinking about the fungal worlds under our feet and how little we understand - then finds out how critical fungi could be to the future of life on Earth.

It all started with rumours of an 800-meter underground organism hidden under the streets of Cambridge and a plate of mushrooms on toast. With cream. In this three-part series, Tim Hayward falls down a rabbit hole into kingdom (or as some call it queendom) Fungi. Along the way he starts to question pretty much everything he thought he knew about the world, discovering scientists doing pioneering research that’s changing how we understand life on Earth and offering solutions to some of our biggest challenges.

In this second episode Tim heads to the Kew Fungarium - the biggest collection of dried fungal specimens in the world, tries to get his head around fungal sex and peers into a world of zombies and snakes in the form of microscopic fungi. He gets a kind of vertigo as he learns more about the fungal world underneath our feet, in our own guts, and, basically - everywhere. He then learns a word that could help to save fungal biodiversity - and why this matters more than he ever could have realised... and finally there’s the possibility of fungal intelligence. 


Features: 
Giuliana Furci, founder of the Fungi Foundation
Merlin Sheldrake, biologist and writer
Justin Stewart, researcher into microbial networks
Kristin Aleklett Kadish, microbial ecologist
Lee Davies, curator at the Kew Fungarium.

Presenter: Tim Hayward
Producer and Sound Designer: Richard Ward
Executive Producer: Miranda Hinkley
Image courtesy of Carolina Magnasco
A Loftus Media production for Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Documentaries

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Tim Hayward falls down a rabbit hole and into the vast and largely hidden world of fungi.

Tim Hayward falls down a rabbit hole into the world of fungi, both ancient and largely hidden from view - and the research that's changing how we understand life on Earth.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Fungi: The New Frontier

The biggest show on Earth

Genres

Series

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4