Weekly Dose of Woah #8 [January 23, 2019]

Today is Wednesday, so you know what that means:

It’s time for your Weekly Dose of Woah!

This one had us literally saying “woah“. We couldn’t believe the incredible change of color this mushroom exhibits after being cut open!

Now, we know mushrooms of specific varieties can certainly make you say “woah“. But this time it’s not due to any psilocybin; this Blue Bolete (Suillellus luridus) mushroom is home to several acids that have a visual color changing effect (and its not a hallucination).

The colour change observed with tissue injury is caused by variegatic and xerocomic acids, both of which turn blue when oxidized enzymatically upon exposure to air.

Wikipedia.org

In other words, when the acids inside the mushroom meet the air (Oxygen specifically), a chemical reaction occurs, where the byproduct is a chemical that absorbs blue wavelength light (that is…looks blue to us)

Pretty sweet, huh?

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