Earth & Environment
Cities can break up passing storms, plus wild boar contamination, altered spider sense and more in this week’s news
By Science News
Side of fungal compounds with wild boar
The industrial age has exposed people to numerous chemical contaminants, but the ancient tradition of feasting on wild boar did as well. When carrying out routine food-inspection tests on wild boar meat, German researchers detected unusually high levels of a previously unknown substance from a class of halogenated compounds that typically persists in the environment and the food chain. Further investigation revealed the suspicious compound is made by a mushroom that boars delight in, the researchers report in an upcoming
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
. The team concludes that humans have likely been exposed to this contaminant for as long as they’ve been eating wild boar, an ancient practice that continues today. —