The world has been gripped by the case of Australian woman Erin Patterson, who was charged with the murder of three people after allegedly serving them a lunch of beef wellington containing poisonous death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides).
A new element of the sensational story emerged in court this week, when prosecutors reportedly alleged Patterson used iNaturalist to locate and visit places where death cap mushrooms were known to grow.
I feared the article would include something like that. Even trying to blame the distributed model (everyone can contribute) I guess.
Did it say “if you’re planning to kill your whole family, this is the perfect mushroom to add to the soup” or did it say “deadly, do not ingest”? If the latter, one could blame a “No Entry” sign for seducing people into entering dangerous places. One could go even further and blame the whole internet - or nature itself!