Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery.

I'm Cody Gough, and I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about why magic mushrooms evolved to be magic in the first place,

and new research that changes what we thought

about when kids develop theory of mind. Let's satisfy some curiosity.

Some mushrooms are magic, if you know what I mean.

That quote unquote magic comes from a molecule the mushrooms make called

silicybin, which has hallucinogenic effects. We've talked about silisibin on the show before, but we have yet

to answer an important question about it, and that is, why do mushrooms make it in the first place?

Well, we're not the first to ask that question.

Researchers studying the evolution of silicibin wanted to know too,

and they found something a little weird when they looked into it.

There are 50 known mushroom species that produce silicibin, but they're not all related to one another.

Typically, a complex trait like silicibin production is found in related species because it evolved in a common ancestor.

But in this case, it seems to have been acquired across multiple genetic lineages.

But that's not to say that each species evolved it independently.

Instead, the evidence suggests that silasibin evolved in one species before being passed along to others

through a process called horizontal gene transfer.

That's where genetic material is passed from one species to another through either viruses or by picking up DNA in the environment.

That's something that happens a lot with bacteria, but rarely in fungi.

Silasibin must be important if all these unrelated species stole it and continue to produce it,

especially since it's costly to make.

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