http://news.discovery.com/earth/mushrooms-promote-downpours-151028.htmNature’s cloud seeders are mushrooms, with spores that promote raindrops and may lead to downpours, new research finds. The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, documents a previously unknown feedback system whereby rain stimulates mushroom growth, and then the fully fruited mushrooms release spores that could result in later rain. “We can watch big water droplets grow as vapor condenses on (the mushroom spore’s) surface,” said senior author Nicholas Money of Miami University’s Biology Department. “Nothing else works like this in nature.” Raindrops do form to a lesser degree around many different types of particulate matter, such as pollen. In a similar process, people seed clouds with compounds like silver iodide and solid carbon dioxide (dry ice). Lead author Maribeth Hassett, Money and co-author Mark Fischer determined that spores from certain mushrooms and other fungi are probably even more potent rainmakers -- and they're not pollutants.
