Did You Know?

• The fungi Phytophthora infestans caused Ireland's great potato famine of the 1800s, which rapidly spread through crops and caused widespread famine.
• Hieroglyphics suggest that ancient Egyptians were using yeast to produce alcoholic beverages and to leaven bread over 5,000 years ago.
• The word pencil comes from the mold penicillium, a Latin name given for its brushlike shape. The name fit because early pencils were a small brush used by artists.
• In 2003, scientists completed unraveling the genome of a bread mold, an organism that researchers have long studied. The mold has approximately 10,000 genes—only about a third fewer than...