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Title Foreign Correspondent: Bhutan
Published Australia : ABC, 2011
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Description 1 online resource (streaming video file) (27 min. 22 sec.) ; 165365085 bytes
Summary It's very rare and you'll only find it up in the very rare air. And even if you have the lungs, stamina and perseverance to get there you'll need razor-sharp eyes, hardy hands and knees and plenty of patience to find it. So what is it? Well it's part-monster, part-mummy and depending on who you talk to it has a multitude of super powers from heart health to sex aid. On one of the strangest journeys we've ever undertaken, we go in search of, er - what to call it? The mile-high grub? No.The views are unbeatable. Breathtaking. Not just because we're 5000 metres above sea level and the air is painfully thin but because all around are scenes that would stop anyone in their tracks and drop jaws to the floor. Majestic rolling ranges, cavernous hidden valleys, snow capped peaks and billowing clouds scudding across endless blue skies.So why is everyone down on all fours, squinting into the grass?Well if you know anything about this patch of high country in Bhutan you'll know that the views are for blow-ins and the ground is for business. They're prospecting for an otherwise unremarkable, tiny twig poking up through the sparse green ground cover.Find one and gently tweeze it - and what its attached to - intact and into, say, your Anzac biscuit tin and you're well on your way to a good day's work. Fill the tin and you've got a harvest that will earn you about $1500 at a market 4 days walk away.When Eric Campbell encounters a Bhutanese prospector and his Anzac tin filled with Cordyceps Sinensis, the trader has a grin from ear to ear and a spring in his step on the downhill run. Eric has lead in his legs and still has about half way to go on the 7-day ascent to the richest cordyceps territory and a scientific research station with his travelling companion, guide and biologist Dr Nigel Hywel-Jones. Along the way the cordyceps expert is not giving much away.HYWEL-JONES: It's a fungus that infects and kills insects.CAMPBELL: So it gets inside them and takes over?HYWEL-JONES: It certainly does in a horrible way. Just like the movie Alien with Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt's bursting-out-of-the-stomach routine, that's what this particular fungus does.CAMPBELL: But they are healthy?HYWEL-JONES: Not for the insects, no.CAMPBELL: For humans?HYWEL-JONES: They are for humans.So many are convinced of the health benefits of this bizarre mummified-grub-turned-mushroom that they're paying as much as $80,000US a kilo for top specimens even though there's no clear scientific support for many of the claims that it's a super-duper antioxidant, a powerful natural antibiotic, an energy booster, heart-helper, lung improver and sex sustainer. As scientists begin to assess the properties and benefits of this weird, high-altitude hybrid the challenge is also on to preserve it and harvest it sustainably. It's certainly one of our strangest assignments but also one of our most fascinating
Event Broadcast 2011-08-09 at 20:00:00
Notes Classification: NC
Subject Cordyceps -- Therapeutic use.
Medicinal plants -- Collection and preservation.
Medicine -- Research.
Scientific expeditions.
Bhutan.
Form Streaming video
Author Campbell, Eric, host
Gyem, Rinchen, contributor
Hywel-Jones, Nigel, contributor
Jamphel, Kinga, contributor
Tenzing, Kinley, contributor