Crikey favourite NMA — a Taiwanese animation studio known for wacky coverage of international news — is spreading its tentacles far and wide, having this week announced a partnership with Reuters. To mark the occasion, here is one of this week’s NMA exposes on — wait for it — Indian Vi-gra made from zombie caterpillar fungus.
Celebrating NMA’s Reuters partnership
Crikey favourite NMA — a Taiwanese animation studio known for wacky coverage of international news — is spreading its tentacles far and wide, having this week announced a partnership with Reuters. To mark the occasion, here is one of this week’s NMA exposes on — wait for it — Indian Vi-gra made from zombie caterpillar […]
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Really, it puts The Onion to shame. Zombie caterpillar fungus? Is it the fungus that’s zombified, or the caterpillar? EMWTK.
Cordyceps is a genus of ascomycete fungi (sac fungi) that includes about 400 identified species and many yet to be described. All Cordyceps species are endoparasitoids, mainly on insects and other arthropods (they are thus entomopathogenic fungi); a few are parasitic on other fungi.
This stuff is commonplace and readily available in the West as a tonic — ‘Cordyceps sinensis’, or caterpillar fungus, also known in China as ‘the Emperor’s herb’ as it was hard to find and renowned for its tonic abilities — all harvest belonged to the Emperor by default. It can now be cultivated in a sterile fashion with no caterpillars required on beds of rice, and is available in bulk — the CS-4 strain is supposed to be the most potent. It’s processed by a steam process which extracts the active ingredients. Contains polysaccharides which are claimed to be a CNS tonic, respiratory tonic, kidney tonic, and immune system modulant. It does work to some extent, and can be useful in clearing up persistent URTIs or post-viral immune problems, or as a general CNS tonic. Belongs to the class of ‘medicinal mushrooms’ including rei-shi and shitake and many others — concentrated shitake is used to treat cancer and has been turned into a drug — Lentinan (Lentinula edodes or shitake).
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicinal_mushrooms