up your architecture.

So this is another one direct from Sam. Apparently there is a fungus in that secretes a form of diesel fuel as a defense mechanism. Gives new meaning to "tripping on mushrooms".

From NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96574076

Scientist Discovers Fungus That Could Fuel A Car
by Alex Chadwick

A researcher at Montana State University has found a micro-organism in a plant in South America that could fuel vehicles one day. The unusual fungus contains the essence of diesel, which one could use to run a bus, for example, without processing it at all.

Professor Gary Strobel discusses his findings on "myco-diesel," which are being published Wednesday in The Journal of Microbiology in London.

Dr. Strobel made the discovery by chance, while collecting fungus from the stem of a tree in an old forest in southern Chile. When he finally got around to sending it off for sophisticated analysis — years later — he discovered that this version of Gliocladium wasn't like others he'd encountered before.

"I've scoured the earth for not only organisms like Gliocladium, but many other endophytes [a plant that lives in the tissue of another plant]. I've been to almost every rainforest on the planet," he tells Alex Chadwick. But, "in over 50 years, I've never seen anything like that."

Why would a fungus create diesel? Essentially to protect from plant invaders, he says.

He also discusses a brief scandal in his past that involved chainsawing trees and trashing an EPA document.

And some other links:
AFP: Fill her up please, and make it myco-diesel
ETA: Biofuel that Grows on Trees
TreeHugger: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/11/mycodiesel-made-by-patagonian-tree-fungus.php