Ahoy folks.

I've aquired a good amount of fresh bud, and after leaving it in an open bag and turning my back for a bloody minute, mold began to form on the most moist of the nugs.

What I need to know here is what is really attracting the mold? Is it just the moisture (which is being treated in a closet, sandwiched between two paper towels with a light breeze), or what in the plant is it eating?

Also, will dehydrating the nug kill off the light patches?

....and, since you've read this far, I read about a few techniques that recommend drying as I'm doing now for a day, then putting the weed in an open plastic bag for the next day to bring the moisture to the outside of the plant...is this necessary?

Mold is attracted to moisture, it uses this to survive. It isn't "eating" your weed or anything, but it will make it degraded (thats for sure)

Dehydrating it then taking off the mold carefully y hand should get rid of it, i don't think it will just fall off or disappear on its own if you dehydrate it.

As for your last question, I have no idea, sorry.

Hmm... Indeed, I will go through the nugs, picking off what mold I can...but if the mold makes the weed degrade, doesn't that mean it's atleast consuming what nutrients are in the plant? If it's only there for the moisture, will it not 'die' without it? I ask because I never took biology, and at this time I'm quite interested in the science of weed mold...

And thinking about the "bag" step I mentioned, I will not be doing that, considering that's what got me to this predicament...

Would one of the sprays I've seen mentioned for the purpose of killing mold on live plants work in this situation?

Also, if anyone knows the proper name of this mold, that would help me quite a bit in determining the proper spray to use.

...and another thought on nug-mold: in regards to the dangers of it, wouldn't the potential harm lie in handling the weed over smoking it? I mean, mold just needs to be disturbed (like being busted for a joint) to send off spores, seems like fire would be more of a safegaurd...

Toss all the moldy bud. Either that or make ISO hash out of it all. Molds not good for you dude.