​The thesis of The Telepathy Tapes podcast is that consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain but rather the foundation of the universe, something that exists as a type of field, like gravity or electromagnetism. Neurotypical people have a “dissociative boundary” that insulates them from this collective consciousness. However, certain people with autism, particularly nonverbal or minimally verbal individuals, are more attuned to this field, allowing them to tap into it (receive it? channel it?) more readily. This facilitates all kinds of parapsychological phenomena like telepathy, clairvoyance, and seeing spirits. The collective consciousness might also be called a different realm, another dimension, or just heaven.

​Maybe… I guess?

In investigating the genetics and evolution of gyromitrin, I sequenced 75 Discinaceae genomes representing all the known species-group clades in the family and conducted phylogenomic analyses. This means that instead of using a few genes to infer a phylogenetic tree, thousands of conserved genes are used to infer evolutionary relatedness. Why are more data better? A few genes may conflict with each other in the story they tell, but thousands of genes typically result in a much more robust inference of evolutionary history. It's basically statistical — the bigger the sample size the greater your power to infer the truth (up to a point). Indeed, our large dataset allowed us to resolve the ancestral relationships of the lorchel family, and the results were published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (PDF). The lorchels are an amazing and diverse group of mushrooms whose taxonomy has been debated for centuries. With these genomes, we were able to not only infer a robust phylogenetic tree and make informed taxonomic revisions but also better understand lorchel ecology and reproduction based on their genomic properties. Check out a recorded presentation I gave for the North American Mycological Association winter webinar series if you'd like to learn more. 

Earlier this year, I published an article in the journal Mycologia entitled “Not all bad: gyromitrin has a limited distribution in the false morels as determined by a new ultra high-performance liquid chromatography method”, the findings of which are summarized here.

​Gyromitrin is a mycotoxin found in some false morels, also known as lorchels (mushrooms in the genus Gyromitra), and is highly toxic. However, methods exist to process toxic lorchels (particularly Gyromitra esculenta) to rid the mushrooms of most of their gyromitrin, allowing them to be eaten without suffering acute illness. People rave about the taste of these mushrooms.

In North America, Gyromitra brunnea, Gyromitra caroliniana, Gyromitra korfii, and Gyromitra montana are commonly consumed without special preparation, but not without controversy. Some anecdotally regard these species to be free of gyromitrin and safe to consume after thorough cooking. Others caution against eating any lorchels for fear that they may contain gyromitrin. Before our publication, no systematic study had been conducted to evaluate the distribution of gyromitrin in lorchels or the lorchel family broadly (Discinaceae).

​For more information on the chemistry of gyromitrin and a review of the relevant literature, please see the introduction in our paper, a PDF of which is available for free here.