The Fungi Superhighway

Imagine stepping out into a quiet field on a clear night. The grass brushes your ankles. The stars wheel overhead. Everything feels… still. But what if I told you that right beneath the soles of your shoes, an ancient, living superhighway is humming with activity? A network so vast it could stretch to the Sun and back nearly a billion times. A hidden circulatory system pulsing with life, trading secrets between plants, locking away carbon, and holding our world together in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

Tonight, on Episode 35, we descend into the soil to uncover one of the most mind-bending discoveries of 2026: the first global map of Earth’s massive underground fungal networks.

Sources

ScienceDaily full story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260614011845.htm

SPUN / Mycorrhizal Infrastructure Map (interactive): https://spun.earth/ (explore the map directly)

Full paper in Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu4373

(DOI: 10.1126/science.adu4373)

SPUN/EurekAlert: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1131131