Mold Quiz

b). Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was isolated and discovered in 1928 by Dr. Alexander Fleming from Penicillium mold.

c) Because they look like paintbrushes – The entire genus Penicillium got its name because their spore-bearing structures look like paintbrushes, which are called “penicilli” in Latin.

Penicillium sp. conidiophore (Photo source: AJC1, Wikimedia).

c) Number of cells. Molds are multicellular, filamentous organisms, while yeasts are aggregations of single-cell organisms which aggregate and act as an individual. Interestingly, some fungi can revert from a yeast form to a filamentous form, depending on certain ecological conditions.

Fungi under microscope;(left) Yeast (right) Mould (Photo source: Bob Blaylock, Wikimedia)

c) 600 000. Furthermore, according to the UNICEF statistics, of all pneumonia-related mortalities of children under the age of five, half can be traced to air pollution.

b). Molds are multicellular, filamentous fungi, while slime molds belong to a more primitive group of organisms called the Protista, which form unicellular or colonial forms such as amoebas and primitive algae.

(left) slime mold (right) mold (Photo source: D. Sadikovic, Mold Busters)

a). Rhizopus fungi create black mold spots on old bread. It is never safe to eat mouldy bread as ingesting black mold can cause nausea, vomiting, and allergic reactions.

e) All of the above. Prolonged exposure to molds can induce many different health problems, with intensity depending from mild irritations in healthy people to life-threatening infections in immunocompromised patients.

c). Moisture is the crucial ingredient for mold to thrive. Generally, the most common reasons for indoor mold spread are plumbing and roof leaks, wet basements, bad yard drainage, and high humidity.

b) Ants. For more than 50 million years, leaf-cutter ants have been cultivating certain fungi which form mushroom-like structures to feed their larvae. This food source is constantly being attacked by molds. In order to protect their crops, these ants have learned to additionally cultivate certain types of microorganisms, which have antibiotic properties against the pathogenic mold.

Atta columbica queen with workers on fungal substrate (Photo source: Christian R. Linder, Wikimedia)

a). The blue veins are the result of Penicillium molds forming colonies in the presence of air. This cheese, even though technically spoiled, is considered safe and a delicacy.