Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
If, like me, you've wasted untold hours playing Alpha Centauri, you'll be intrigued to know that long ago, Earth had fungal towers, too.
Scientists at the University of Chicago and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., have produced new evidence to finally resolve the mysterious identity of what they regard as one of the weirdest organisms that ever lived. Their chemical analysis indicates that the organism was a fungus, the scientists report in the May issue of the journal of Geology, published by the Geological Society of America. Called Prototaxites, the organism went extinct approximately 350 million years ago.
Prototaxites has generated controversy for more than a century. Originally classified as a conifer, scientists later argued that it was instead a lichen, various types of algae or a fungus. Whatever it was, it stood in tree-like trunks more than 20 feet tall, making it the largest-known organism on land in its day. [...] Although vascular plants had established themselves on land 40 million years before the appearance of Prototaxites, the tallest among them stood no more than a couple feet high.
Weird.
I always liked playing Colonel Corazon Santiago of the Spartan Federation.
Posted by: NCProsecutor at April 23, 2007 10:31 AM2: No argument. Then again, that's kind of like saying that the Xbox 360 knocks the Nintendo 64 on its ass.
Posted by: NCProsecutor at April 23, 2007 02:12 PMCiv 4 knocks SMAC flat on its ass.
No fungal towers, though, so not really germane.
Posted by: apostropher at April 23, 2007 05:32 PMYeah, but they find evidence of mind worm boils nearby the fungal trees, earthapostropher?
Posted by: Jon at April 23, 2007 10:40 PMNot familiar with the game, but there was a middling SF novel I recall in which settlers found that the planet's dominant species was a fungus - a fungus that occasionally grew large towers to launch spores into the atmosphere.
The spores would germinate on humans, with the effect of improving intelligence and pacifying harsh, male-dominated religionists.
Posted by: TokyoTom at April 23, 2007 10:56 PMTT -- Sounds like something Sherri Tepper would write. She's really the master of middling feminist-horror SF, no?
Posted by: lemuel pitkin at April 24, 2007 12:49 PM7: Maybe we should get Justices Scalia and Thomas exposed to some of those pacifying spores.
Posted by: NCProsecutor at April 24, 2007 01:07 PMHowever, too many threads about behavior-altering fungi/parasites gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Posted by: John Johnson at April 24, 2007 01:22 PM