Refrigerator Art or There's a Fungus Among Us

While cleaning out the fridge we found this attractive and interesting piece of art (made by God). These are edamame beans left over from a previous meal. It is interesting to see several different types of mold present. A brown and white mold covers some beans, a thick blue coating is on others. A vibrant orange mold covers the micropyle of some beans. Apparently the composition of the seed parts decides what mold is best able to grow there. White fuzz of the hilum, blue on the seed coat as well as the afore mentioned orange. Another interesting questions is, why put a big bowl with a couple dozen beans in the fridge?

The molds provided an opportunity to discuss the useful and useless properties of molds. Useful properties include food production in things like cheeses, medicines--i.e. penicillins, some sausages, soy sauce and breads (although yeast technically isn't a mold as it doesn't form microfilaments). Useless properties include; food spoilage, disease and human allergies.