I'm sure absolutely nothing would go wrong with this, like fungus adapting to attach to human hosts too.
But very interesting idea
Why not? No need to dress-undress everyday anymore.
I'd be worried about injuring the fungus by accident.
It'll just take a nibble and fix itself.
This is really amazing as a first prototype. Probably you'd want to improve on this by genetic engineering. Like repairability and self cleaning and ideally eating skin oils or cells to stay alive.
A proper self cleaning biomaterial that ingests dust and transports ash it into some "garbage pocket" would be awesome. This could also be great for bedsheets, chair textiles, mattresses and maybe even wallpaper or carpet.
How could this possibly go wrong?
Under dry conditions, most biological activity is greatly reduced, and the cells may remain inactive or dormant, says Li.
But under humid conditions with nutrients present, some cells can become active again. This latent biological capacity is what enables functions such as regrowth and repair, and also means that the material is readily biodegradable, showing near-complete visible degradation in soil after just over 40 days.
Seems like it would need some sort of underlayer to separate it from sweat.
Oh did you say fungal undergarments? I do grow my own, but not to share.
Really sad to see the harm done by the last of us. You are vastly different from a caterpillar, and even then, this thing is pretty picky about the type of caterpillar it affects.
I also wonder how they made it out of living mycelium, but the article is data blocked. But I would totally be first in line for this if it wasn't thousands of dollars.
Weird, I thought maybe newscientist changed their tune on paywalls since this one wasn't blocked for me. Here's an alt link for you:
Mushroom leather! Very cool!
The famous mycobiologist (self sic) Paul Stamets has a hat he wears made from an arboreal species that I assume is less flexible. I'm excited to see if this gets picked up by any manufacturer.
It would be fantastic if it does, or if there were a way to grow your own fashion at home. I can't imagine it being much different from mushroom kits.
Super cool idea, not sure I'd be willing to wear fungal clothing, but its neat.
The last of us...
A catch-all world journalism community for news, reports, blogs, editorials, and whatever.
Be cool to each other. Instance rules apply.
All posts should link to a *current, *good quality blog, article, editorial, listicle, research paper, or something that can be considered "news."
Post title should be the article title.
No misinformation or bigotry.
For paywalled media, please provide an archived link in the text body of the post.
Commenters who don't read the posted article may receive temporary bans. This is a community for informed discussion.
Tag if needed:
[NSFW] and [Content Warning - x] — At your discretion.
[D/M/Y] — If the publication is older than a month. You can just tag the year if the article is more than a year old.
[Month and/or year] — For old but relevant articles. Use your best judgement.
[Conspiracy Tuesday] — Conspiracy theories/occult themes/cryptids/pseudoscience. On Tuesdays.
[E-mail required] — If an e-mail is needed to sign in.
[Archive link in post] — For paywalls and account sign-ins, link the main article in the URL, paste the archive link in the text body.
*Current means the article contains the most up to date publically available information on the subject, within reason. Older publications are welcome as long as they include a date tag.
*Good quality means the source has a good reputation for accurate journalism with a reasonably clean fact checking record.
Check out !Independent_Media@lemmy.today for independent news from around the world or !indy_news_canada@sh.itjust.works for Canadian independent publications.
All communities were created with the goal of increasing media literacy and media pluralism.
Sources posted here include:
https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/
apnews.com/
https://www.theguardian.com/international
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/us
Icon image by z0r0z on pixabay, depicting a silhouette of a world map on a paint-splattered background.
Banner image by Lucentius on pixabay, depicting crumpled newpapers.