Tree fungus implicated in many AIDS deaths and others with compromised immune systems
Discovery is the result of a 7th grader's science project (with help from Dad, an infectious disease specialist).
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/08/22/342420659/california-trees-nailed-as-the-source-of-mystery-infections?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20140822
= new reply since forum marked as read
An amazing piece of work from someone so young! Hopfully lives will be saved thanks to this young women's discovery.
.... still I would tell you to cut them down. They have nasty fruits that are a
pain in the ass to clean up and they stick you if you step on them in bare feet.
If you are worreid about the shade go ahead and plant a native tree in the area and then
in a year or so cut down the sweet gums.
BTW I really do have a background in botany.
They don't burn worth a shit either so I haul them to my brothers and unload them in a draw that he'd like to cut down on erosion in.
The trees are excellent shade trees because of all the leaves they have. The more evaporation you get the more heat taken away so it will be noticeably cooler under these sweet gum trees than the other trees we have in our yard. Taking all this in consideration I am reluctant to cut them down.
Our Native people had all kinds of uses for different parts of the trees too. Sorry I don't have time to get a link as I'm heading out the door to go garage/yard sale'n this morning
Good to know there is something there, Botany 
OT: Anyone who can hobnob with Randi has my vote 
He used green twigs to build a little smokey fire in a largish tin can like a coffee tin. It would smoulder all night, send up a fragrant odor, and keep the mosquitoes away when he slept outside on the farm.
His sisters used sweet gum twigs as what they called "tooth brushes" - chewing on them frequently. I think tooth cleansing was one of their main uses, and I seem to remember hearing or reading somewhere that there is something in the twigs that helps battle plaque and decay. Of course, when I knew them they had few if any teeth left. Still, I see them in mind's eye sitting around the fireplace on a cold winter's night, gossiping and dipping the well masticated brush-like end of the twig into their snuff, then mooshing it around in their jaw with the "bristles". (Yes, I was disgusted as a child, and still disgusted, yet I loved them and have such fond memories.)
I always assumed it was an old settlers' idea, these sweet gum tooth brushes. Now you've made me wonder. Granddaddy also said his grandfather was half Indian.
He and the others told me he dowsed for water, too. Successfully, they said. Seems like he might have used a forked sweet gum branch for that - or maybe it was a dogwood?
I'm sure there were other uses I witnessed, but I was very young and can't remember others. I do remember they used leaves from the bay trees that grew wild all through the woods when they made lard. Just tossed them into the lard after it was clarified and before it set up. Supposed to keep it from going rancid. Laid it around in the pantry to keep away bugs, too.
Useful stuff, those trees.
Wat
