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.

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.

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.

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.

For indoor gardeners who want to try something a bit more exotic, cultivating mushrooms can be rewarding and FirstBuild's Mella smart mushroom fruiting chamber promises to take some of the guesswork out of the challenge.

Like most foods, mushrooms are best when fresh … but it can be difficult to grow them yourself. Shrooly is designed to help, by automatically providing the best conditions for pre-inoculated mushroom-growing pods.

Although there's nothing quite like freshly picked mushrooms, growing the things yourself can be quite challenging. That's where the Mella Smart Mushroom Fruiting Chamber comes in, as it's designed to make doing so much easier.

According to Pennsylvania State University's Asst. Prof. Long He, the mushroom-farming industry is currently experiencing a labor shortage. His team has thus set about addressing that problem, by developing a mushroom-picking robot.

Discarded lobster shells, oyster shells, and used wine bottle corks would typically be considered waste. However, they are being put to good use as building materials for a sustainable pavilion that's planned for England's Glyndebourne Opera.

A new review article, from a team of material scientists, is suggesting a leather-like material made from mushroom-derived biomass has the potential to be cheaper, and more environmentally sustainable, than animal leather or its plastic derivations.