18 fabulous fungi photos that call into question everything you know about nature.

It's 2016. Isn't it time you let mushrooms into your heart?

Fungi (think mushrooms, lichens, and slime molds) are actually really fun, guys.

Dad jokes aside, mushrooms and other fungi are diverse, colorful, textured, and just plain strange. Their beauty is remarkable and unexpected, challenging every notion about what fungi should be. I wanted to know more about these organisms, so I went straight to the source: fungi fanatic Stephen Axford.

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I spent a few minutes digging in my yard all in the name of cancer research.

There is rainwater seeping into my jeans, and my instructions are about to blow away. But my front yard could hold the cure to cancer, so I keep digging.

I am outside my home in Portland, Oregon, digging in the soil with a small plastic scoop I requested from the Natural Products Discovery Group at the University of Oklahoma. An interdisciplinary team of researchers are hard at work there, looking for fungi and natural products found in soil that may be used for a host of drugs and cures for cancer, infectious diseases, and even heart disease.

So the least I can do is get my knees wet.

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