Fungi are among the planet’s oldest and most tenacious organisms. They are currently showing great promise to become one of the most useful materials for producing textiles, gadgets and other construction materials. The joint research venture undertaken by the University of the West of England, Bristol, the U.K. (UWE Bristol) and collaborators from Mogu S.r.l., Italy, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Torino, Italy and also the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has shown that fungi have incredible properties that enable them to sense and process a variety of external stimuli, such as light, stretching, temperature, the presence of chemical compounds and even electrical signals.
This could help pave the way for the development of fungal materials with a multitude of interesting traits, such as sustainability, durability, repairability and adaptability. Through exploring the potential of fungi as elements in wearable apparatus, the research has verified the possibility of using these biomaterials as effective detectors with endless potential applications.
Fungi to make smart wearables even smarter
Individuals are unlikely to consider fungi as a suitable material for producing gadgets, particularly smart devices such as pedometers or mobile phones. Wearable devices require sophisticated circuits that connect to sensors and also have some computing power, which can be accomplished through complex procedures and exclusive materials. This, roughly speaking, is what makes them “smart”. The cooperation of Prof. Andrew Adamatzky and Dr. Anna Nikolaidou from UWE Bristol’s Unconventional Computing Laboratory, Antoni Gandia, Chief Technology Officer in Mogu S.r.l., Prof. Alessandro Chiolerio from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Torino, Italy and Dr. Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi, researcher using the UOC’s Scene Understanding and Artificial Intelligence Lab (SUNAI) have demonstrated that fungi can be added to the list of these materials.
Indeed, the current analysis, entitled “Reactive fungal wearable” and featured in Biosystems, analyses the ability of oyster fungus Pleurotus ostreatus to sense environmental stimuli that could come, for instance, in the body. In order to test the fungi’s reaction capabilities as a biomaterial, the analysis analyses and describes its position as a biosensor with the ability to differentiate between mechanical, chemical and electric stimulation.
“Fungi make up the largest, most widely distributed and oldest group of living organisms on the planet,” said Dehshibi, who added, “They grow extremely fast and bind to the substrate you combine them with”. According to the UOC researcher, fungi are even able to process data in a manner that resembles computers.
“We can reprogram a geometry and graph-theoretical structure of the mycelium networks and then use the fungi’s electrical activity to realize computing circuits,” said Dehshibi, adding that, “Fungi do not only respond to stimuli and trigger signals accordingly, but also allow us to manipulate them to carry out computational tasks, in other words, to process information”. Because of this, the possibility of producing real computer parts with fungal material is no longer pure science fiction. In reality, these elements would be capable of shooting and reacting to external signals in a means that has never been observed before.
Why use fungi?
On the surface, fungi may appear to pose more than a few major problems. They need to be looked after, they decompose, they are just slightly resistant, so they may create odors, etc. However, most of these problems have already been overcome… and with flying colors. The researcher said: “Generally speaking, working with living organisms entails specific issues.” Bearing that in mind, and after assessing each of their options, the team ultimately chose Basidiomycetes, a branch of the fungi kingdom, due to their own study.
These fungi have less to do with diseases and other difficulties caused by Their kin when grown inside. What is more, based on Dehshibi, mycelium-based goods are already used commercially in construction. He said:”You can mold them into various shapes like you would with cement, yet to create a geometric area you merely need between five days and two weeks. They also have a tiny environmental footprint. In fact, given that they feed on waste to grow, they may be considered environmentally friendly”.
The planet is no stranger to so-called”fungal architectures”, constructed Utilizing biomaterials made from fungi. Existing approaches in this field involve growing the organism into the desired shape using small modules such as bricks, blocks or sheets. These are then dried to kill off the organism, leaving behind a sustainable and odourless compound.
However this can be taken one step farther, ” said the specialist, if the Mycelia are kept alive and integrated into nanoparticles and polymers to develop electronic components. He explained:”This video substrate is grown in a cloth mold to give it shape and supply additional construction. Over the previous ten years, Professor Adamatzky has produced several prototypes of computing and sensing devices using the slime mould Physarum polycephalum, including various computational geometry processors and hybrid electronic devices.”
The upcoming stretch
Although Professor Adamatzky found that this slime mold is A suitable substrate for computing that is unconventional, the simple fact it is always changing prevents the manufacture of long-living devices, and slime mold computing devices are thus restricted to experimental laboratory set-ups.
But, according to Dehshibi, Due to their development and Behaviour, basidiomycetes are more easily available, less susceptible to infections, larger in size and more convenient to control than slime mold. In addition, Pleurotus ostreatus, as verified in their latest paper, can be readily experimented on outdoors, thus opening the chance for new programs. This makes mosquitoes an perfect goal for the creation of future living computer devices.
The UOC researcher said:”In my opinion, we still have to Handle Two major challenges. The first is made up really implementing [fungal system] computation using a purpose; in other words, computation that makes sense. The second would be to describe the properties of this fungal substrates via Boolean mapping, so as to uncover the genuine computing potential of their mycelium networks.” To word it a different way, although we understand there is potential for this kind of application, we still must figure out how far this possible goes and how we can tap into it for functional purposes.
We may not have to wait too long for the answers, however. The First prototype developed by the group, which forms a part of this study, will streamline the upcoming design and construction of buildings with exceptional capabilities, thanks to their own fungal biomaterials. The researcher stated:”This revolutionary approach promotes the utilization of a living organism as a building material that’s also designed to compute.” When the project wraps up in December 2022, the FUNGAR project will construct a large-scale fungal construction in Denmark and Italy, as well as a more compact version on UWE Bristol’s Frenchay Campus.
Dehshibi said:”To date, only small modules such as bricks and Sheets are manufactured. However, NASA is interested in the idea and is looking for ways to build bases on the Moon and Mars to send inactive spores to other planets” To conclude, he explained:”Living within a fungus can strike you as strange, however why is it so odd to think that we can live inside something living? It would mark a very interesting ecological shift that would allow us to do away with concrete, wood and glass. Just imagine schools, offices and hospitals that always grow, regenerate and perish; it’s the pinnacle of sustainable life”
For the authors of the paper, the point of bacterial computers isn’t to replace silicon chips. Fungal reactions are too slow for this. Rather, they believe people could use mycelium growing in an ecosystem as a “large-scale environmental sensor.” Fungal networks, they conclude, are tracking a large number of data flows as part of the regular existence. If we can plug right into mycelial networks and interpret the signals, they use to process information, we can learn more about what was happening in an ecosystem.
Related Journal Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303264720301805?via%3Dihub