[James001]

> The specific makeup of Lichens though, is an extremely niche field, that doesn't affect the broader field of Biology in any significant way.

Well you would be wrong. This guy almost single-handedly led the way to enabling the cultivation of lichen in laboratory conditions, something that has had very limited success up until now.

What are the benefits of cultivating lichen? It's another way to farm biological molecules. As it turns out, Lichen are actually composed of 2 fungi not just 1. Basidiomycetes and Ascomycete. So that's a huge crop of potential medicines, or manufacturing catalysts that can be economically produced now.

So give this guy a lil more credit. Just because you don't care about lichens, doesn't mean "most biologists don't care about it". He has literally, no hyperbole, overturned 150 years of biology. It is that significant.

Also, it's very arrogant of you to suggest that most biologists do not care about this discovery. At the very least, it is humbling to all biologists. And as such, most, if not all, biologists will care about this discovery precisely because it shows that we can be missing something so fundamental for so long.

[iaw]

Lichen may be a good next step for manufacturing more complex energy-intensive chemicals than yeast can.

There is a good chance that this discovery will be invaluable in 30 years time.