News · 25 June 2026
New funds to study melanin's role in fungi
Unsplash / Timothy Dykes
Researchers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln have secured new US Army and Air Force funding to study a black fungus that thrives in harsh places. They want to understand why some fungi release melanin, an expensive pigment, into their surroundings. This research aims to reveal how melanin helps entire microbial communities survive extreme conditions, building on earlier work on a fungal species discovered at Nebraska.
Reported by Nebraska Today · How we write briefs