Telluride Mushroom Festival 2014 Manages to Conduct Serious Science During the World’s Biggest Mushroom Party! Join Taylor Lockwood, Daniel Winkler, Paul Kroeger, Christian Schwarz, Robert Rogers, Ja Schindler, Radical Mycology, Art Goodtimes, Rebecca Fyffe, Katrina Blair, Dahlia Mertens, Daiva Chesonis, Mara Fae, Kilindi Iyi, John and Yva Neal and others this August for the best mushroom event on earth... Topics Range From the Psychedelic Renaissance to Using Fungi as Medicine TELLURIDE – The 33rd annual Telluride Mushroom Festival August 16 - 19, 2014, will focus on 4 main tracks within mycology: Culinary, Medicinal, Entheogenic, and Mycoremediation. “When you see hundreds of festival participants dressed as mushrooms in our epic annual costume parade, you’ll have no idea that serious science is taking place beneath a public tent a few feet away,” said Matt Kostalek, vice-president of Aloha Medicinals. Kostalek and chief-scientific-advisor John Holliday, the internationally renowned mycologist at the helm of Aloha Medicinals, have offered a grant of over $10,000 to fund the Telluride Institute Voucher Program science tent where DNA specimens of mushrooms will be prepared in Elk’s Park during this year’s Mushroom Festival. Anthropologist and author Lawrence Millman says of the program, “The DNAing of voucher specimens is an excellent idea, for -- in addition to the usual reasons -- it will show the world that the Telluride Mushroom Festival is serious and scientific rather than, in the minds of many mycophiles, simply a celebration of shrooms (Psilocybes etc) in all their brain-altering glory.” Gary Lincoff, who is the author of the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, will join John Holliday to co-lead the Voucher Program. “We have created a checklist of the mushrooms we have been finding in the Telluride area since 1981. We know the mushrooms fairly well, but we do not know how they relate to similar mushrooms elsewhere, especially those whose names are being used to represent the ones we are finding in Telluride,” Lincoff says of his hope for the Voucher Program. Lincoff laid the groundwork for the Voucher Program with mycologist Linnea Gillman, who has entered more Western Slope mushrooms into herbaria than anyone else. This year, Lincoff invited his friend and colleague, mycologist Noah Siegel to assist with the Voucher Program, “You have hundreds of people in the woods collecting mushrooms, and a good deal of these mushrooms they collect are undescribed; new to science,” so here is an opportunity to take advantage of these Citizen Scientists,” says Siegel, who is excited about the open-air science tent. For 33 years, the festival has offered a forum for intellectual exploration of the role mushrooms play on Earth, offering something for everyone, from guided forays in the San Juan mountains of southern Colorado to presentations on mushroom cultivation, anthropology, remediation and the important research being conducted by Maggie Klinedinst, psychedelic researcher at Johns Hopkins Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit (BPRU). This years 2014 keynote speaker is Langdon Cook a writer and lecturer on wild foods and the outdoors. His books include The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America, winner of the 2014 Pacific Northwest Book Award, and Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, which the Seattle Times called “lyrical, practical and quixotic.” Biotechnology researcher Dr. Ayman Samy Daba, who focuses on mushrooms’ effect on the treatment and reversal of cancer, is a board certified clinical laboratory scientist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Daba will discuss the antitumor activity of mushrooms and explain his research findings that show that their efficacy is due to indirect host mediated immunotherapeutic effect, which means that, rather than attacking the tumor, mushrooms reverse cancer by boosting the hosts immune system overall. Other presentations include Mycopigments: Pick Mushrooms and Dye with Alissa Allen,” who shares local mushroom dye palettes with fungophiles and fiber artists alike. Mushroom identification is her primary passion, but Mycopigments are her obsession. In addition to using mushrooms to dye wool and silk, she is currently exploring lichen dyes and mushroom pigments for paint. You can read more on her website Mycopigments. Alissa will offer 3 workshops during the Mushroom Festival, which are limited to 20 participants each, so please book early to reserve your space. This year’s Mushroom Festival is expected to sell out, so please reserve your festival pass soon. As always, children under age 12 are FREE and a 15 percent discount on lodging is available through Telluride Alpine Lodging. Each day will also feature Guided Mushroom Forays, expert lectures and special culinary events, with a Myco-Brew Mushroom Beer Release Party on Friday, August 15, and a Chefs Cook-Off Street Party on Saturday, August 16, featuring live music and tastings of dishes prepared by Tellurides best chefs. Full event passes are available at telluridemushroomfest.org. # # # What is Mushroom Festival? The 33rd Annual Mushroom Festival is the world’s largest mushroom conference welcoming newbies and professional mycologists. The 4-day event features lectures, films, forays, workshops, a mushroom cookoff and more! Visit telluridemushroomfest.org/
Posted on: Fri, 23 May 2014 02:43:21 +0000
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