Scientists discover hyper-intelligent, fast-growing mushroom that could have a major impact on our planet
Story by Jeremiah Budin • Yesterday 7:00 AM
In the hunt for compelling alternatives to plastic, researchers in Finland may have
just found a winner —
and it’s already growing all over the sides of trees.
The substance in
question is a type of mushroom known as Fomes fomentarius. It grows on the
rotting bark of trees and has historically been used mainly as a fire starter,
lending it the nickname “tinder fungus.” (It has also been called “hoof fungus”
because its shape resembles a hoof.)
However, a research
team at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland thinks that it could be
much more than that.
“F. fomentarius
fruiting bodies are ingeniously lightweight biological designs, simple in
composition but efficient in performance,” the team’s study, published recently
in Science Advances, said.
“Growing the material using simple ingredients is an alternative solution to
overcome the cost, time, mass production, and sustainability of how we make and
consume materials in the future.”
In short, instead of
mass-producing plastic at an enormous cost to our planet, in the future, we
could simply grow a mushroom with similar structural integrity to plastic at
scale.
Remember that line from The Graduate, when Benjamin receives a word of advice from one of his parents' friends? "Plastic" is the word. Fungus would be better!
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