There’s a biological detective story out there about someone figuring out how to culture the black soot near distilleries. This isn’t the version I read but it’s the same microbe:
https://www.wanderingspiritsglobal.com/whisky-fungus-baudoin...
It doesn’t culture in agar. Unless you add alcohol to the Petri dish and then it does. Things like this are why I still have my fingers crossed that we will have one or more helicobacter pylori (the bacteria that causes 90% of ulcers) moments for intestinal ailments. These obelisks may turn out to be one of them, and understanding could lead to better treatments and prevention.
