Deep in the basement of an ancient house in Sonobe (tucked in the fields of Kyoto, Japan), an amazing discovery has been made: real 1up Mushrooms. We know this sounds unbelievable, and we laughed when we were contacted by an exporter about them two months ago. But then we were sent a sample, and that's when our lives changed forever.

The instructions are pretty simple. All you do is add potting soil to the green sewer-pipe-shaped flower pot, and push the spores deep into it. Soak the soil with water using the dropper, add a squirt of the food solution, and then it's off to a dark location for a few weeks. We left ours in the darkest corner of our server room, and broke out our NES to relive some classic Mario memories. Three weeks later, we checked in on it. To our surprise, what you see in the photo above is what greeted us - a perfect 1up mushroom. Thrilled, we jumped up in the air, punched the ceiling tiles (earning 10 coins), and instantly bought the entire stock of them to offer to you, our friends.

The packet claims that eating the 1up Mushroom will grant "immortal life beyond dreams of man." It also has the warning: Do not put in face. To be honest, we haven't gotten up the courage to eat one yet. We have, however, sent one to the Smithsonian Institution and another to the National Institutes of Health for study. So far, everyone we show it to, especially the mycologists we know, have been very excited about this discovery. We sell them to you now, warn you not to eat them (yet!), and join us in crossing your fingers for the lab results. We'll post more as soon as we know.