Mushrooms

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.

Composting toilets are a great idea, but no one likes to think of the waste sitting there and fermenting. A new eco-friendly toilet gets around that problem by using mushrooms to facilitate the composting process, plus it uses no water to do the job.

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.

Oyster mushrooms and bits of bamboo sound more at home on a Chinese menu than stuck to the wall, but scientists have used this mix to make aesthetically pleasing tiles with bumps and textures that help regulate temperature much like elephant skin does.

The white button mushroom has cancer-fighting abilities, according to the results of a human clinical trial on the use of food as medicine. Not only does it slow tumor growth, but it also allows cancer-fighting immune cells to do their job effectively.

Citizen scientists have been key to the discovery of two new species of hallucinogenic fungi, joining the ranks of 140 known types of these psychoactive mushrooms. One even has longstanding roots in traditional healing medicine in mountainous Lesotho.

Your boots may soon have a tropical touch, with a breakthrough in using pineapple leaves to make a strong, 100% natural, sustainable leather. It comprehensively outperformed mushroom leather, and has serious potential for scalable, commercial use.

Laws are opening up to support the use of medicinal psilocybin – and that requires new technology to ensure accurate, consistent dosing. Researchers have now developed a fast and reliable method of determining the potency of magic mushrooms.

A healthy frog has been spotted with a mushroom growing out its side, the first time such a growth on live animal tissue has been seen. Not surprisingly, it stunned scientists (and had us wondering if this is how a real-life The Last of Us begins).

When it comes to cleaning up marine oil spills, it's best if you can use a material that separates the oil from the seawater. Scientists have created a new organic membrane which does exactly that, and it's derived from oyster mushrooms.

The communications and nutrients support system of fungi, mycelium, can stretch hundreds of miles beneath our feet. Now, researchers have harnessed another of its bio-superpowers to engineer a sustainable, safe and effective fire-retardant material.