Fungus

There are very few plants that can grow in sand, but farming in a desert is hard to imagine. Or is it? Scientists in the UAE are trying to make it happen. With their new method, growing crops in sand may become possible in the near future.

Imagine clothing that could repair itself, change color, self-clean, and then eventually break down in the soil. Sounds futuristic, but it’s already a reality: Chinese researchers have turned living fungi into a fabric and sewn a dress from it.

A recently published study shows promising results from combining edible turkey tail fungus with a solution of wood fibers. The end product is a natural sustainable waterproof coating that may be a replacement for single-use plastic food wrap.

They may be better known for stir-fries than supercomputing, but shiitake mushrooms have now been harnessed to function as living processors, storing and recalling data like a semiconductor chip but with almost no environmental footprint.

Researchers in Switzerland have developed a new film-like material that incorporates living cells from fungi, so it's biodegradable and can help break down waste too. Oh, and you can eat it, if you're curious like that.

Engineers from Montana State University have developed a building material using the root-like mycelium network of a fungus. It's the first time fungal mycelium has been tested as a scaffold for living materials.

Swiss researchers claim to have devised a functional living battery powered by the combined efforts of two types of fungi – all in a biodegradable, non-toxic 3D-printed package to run sensors for agriculture and environmental research.

Imagine a glow-in-the-dark designer desk, or wooden fence posts that guide you home with their eerie light. Scientists in Switzerland have developed a way to make glowing wood, with the help of a fungus.

For the 60th year in a row, the Natural History Museum of London has held its Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards. And for the 60th year in a row, the images are guaranteed to stir your love of the natural world and the animals that live in it.

Autonomous vehicles are said to be safer than human drivers – but would you trust a mushroom behind the wheel? A new kind of “biohybrid” robot moves in response to signals from the nervous system of a fungus.

It's one of the biggest and most treasured photography contests on the planet, and this year attracted a massive 49,957 entries. But there could be only a handful of winners. We present the standouts, offering a rare glimpse into the natural world.

In the third BMC Ecology and Evolution image competition, a stunning snap of the invasive orange pore fungus (Favolaschia calocera) has not just encroached on native species’ territory but taken out the top spot in the annual contest.