Two Chinese researchers were charged with smuggling a fungus classified “as a potential agroterrorism weapon” that could decimate crops and impact human health into the US last summer in a wad of tissues,

Fusarium graminearum — the fungus federal prosecutors say a University of Michigan scholar and her boyfriend attempted to smuggle into the U.S. — is a dangerous strain of a common fungus that can infect wheat, rice, oats and other cereal plants. It can cause devastating crop damage and potentially make infected grains dangerous to eat.