Everyone's heard the phrase "snake in the grass" at one point or another, but there's more lurking in those seemingly innocent stalks of green than a metaphorical reptile.

Photo: Dan Panaccione and Katy Ryan examine fungi at the genetic level. Photo by Lindsay Willey.

Legend has it that the Big Band or "Swing" Era in the United States began in 1935 at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles when Benny Goodman and his orchestra began playing exciting "hot" new jazz and the jitterbug appeared as the new dance craze.
But according to West Virginia University music history professor Christopher Wilkinson's new book (photo inset), "Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia, 1930-1942," for black Mountaineers, the Big Band Era actually began almost a year earlier—in September 1934—at the National Guard Armory in Fairmont, where a black audience of 700 people danced to the music of African-American bandleader Jimmie Lunceford.